



Oofpght N°. ' d £X^'- 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




































The Works of Mrs. Gaskell 

•tenuteforfc JEMtion 


EIGHT VOLUMES 


i. Mary Barton 

5 - 

My Lady Ludlow 

2. Cranford 

6. 

Sylvia’s Lovers 

3. Ruth 

7 - 

Cousin Phillis 

4. North and South 

8. 

Wives and Daughters 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
New York 


London 


fmut8tor& EDttion 


THE WORKS 

OF 

MRS. GASKELL 

IN EIGHT VOLUMES 

With a General Biographical Introduction, an 
a Critical Introduction to Each Volume. 

BY 

DR. A. W. WARD 

Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge 

WHO HAS RECEIVED THE KIND ASSISTANCE OF THE 


MISSES GASKELL 


“Mrs. Gaskell has done what neither I nor other female 
writers in France can accomplish — she has written novels 
which excite the deepest interest in men of the world, and 
yet which every girl will be the better for reading. ,, 


GEORGE SAND. 








TRnutsforb E&ition 


MY LADY LUDLOW 


BY 

* ' : - 

MRS. GASKELL 


To which are added 

An Accursed Race— The Doom of the Griffiths— Half 
a Lifetime Ago— The Poor Clare— The Half-Brothers— 
Mr. Harrison’s Confessions— The Manchester Marriage 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

DR. A. W. WARD 

Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge 



NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
LONDON : SMITH, ELDER, & CO. 
1906 


i 


0^ * V 


JuBRARY of CONGRESS 

I Two Conies Received 

I IAN 88 1907 

-CopyrUrhi E»tra 

Wit-iA*: 

/Ul ' 3 


Copyright, 1906 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
(For Introduction) 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION . xi 

ROUND THE SOFA 1 

MY LADY LUDLOW 9 

AN ACCURSED RACE 218 

THE DOOM OF THE GRIFFITHS . , . ,237 

HALF A LIFETIME AGO 278 

THE POOR CLARE 329 

THE HALF-BROTHERS 391 

MR. HARRISON’S CONFESSIONS 405 


THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE 


492 







































































' 




















LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


The Drawing-room, 84 , Plymouth Grove, Manchester 

Frontispiece 


Mrs. Lumb’s House, in Knutsford . . To face page 405 

From a drawing by Richard H. Watt , Esq. 


Ix 



INTRODUCTION TO 
“MY LADY LUDLOW,” ETC. 

Great writers, even if like Mrs. Gaskell exceptionally free 
from the habit of self-imitation, are rarely unlike them- 
selves; but no pretence need be made that there is any 
special kind of unity in the contents of the present vol- 
ume. Indeed, one of its attractions will probably be 
found in the stimulating diversity of the intellectual 
interests which it shows its writer to have possessed, and 
in the fresh imaginative power with which she here 
finds fit and natural expression for all of them in turn. 
These tales range in their themes from the cloud-laden 
spheres of tragedy and weird mystery to the gentle 
tranquillity of the domestic idyll; their characters and 
incidents are gathered in from the past and from the 
present ; and their scenes are laid in the remote mountain- 
valleys of Wales and Lancashire, in the troubled streets 
of revolutionary I^aris, and in the green seclusion of 
rural England. I do not know whether, like Steele 
when superscribing the miscellaneous section of his 
contributions to The Tatler, Mrs. Gaskell might have 
dated all these tales “from my own apartment”; but, 
even had not most of them professed to have been told 
“round the sofa,” they would all alike remain instinct 
with the human kindness and sympathy which were 
part of herself, and of the atmosphere breathed by her 
in her home life. The frontispiece of the present volume, 
not inappropriately I think, recalls the centre of that 

xi 


Introduction 


life, the drawing-room at 84, Plymouth Grove, where 
more than one of the stories here reprinted may have 
found their earliest readers, and where their writer may 
have first welcomed the clear-sighted criticisms of a 
watchful affection. Even to those of us who were ad- 
mitted to the hospitality of that drawing-room in later 
years its kindly and inspiring associations seemed con- 
tinuous: may they long remain such ! 

All the tales included in this volume were first pub- 
lished as contributions to periodical literature. My 
Lady Ludlow appeared in Household Words from June 
19 to September 25, 1858; and in the same journal had 
been previously printed, An Accursed Race (August 25, 
1855), Half a Lifetime Ago (October 6, 13, and 20, 
1855), and The Poor Clare (December 13 to 27, 1855). 
The Doom of the Griffiths appeared in Harper's Magazine 
in 1858, and The Half-Brothers in The Dublin University 
Magazine , in November of the same year. Finally, The 
Manchester Marriage seems to have been first printed 
in Littell's Living Age , a paper published at Boston, 
U.S.A., in 1859. In that year all the tales included in 
the present volume, with the exception of Mr. Harri- 
son's Confessions and The Manchester Marriage , were 
collected together by their authoress into a single 
volume, which was published by Messrs. Sampson Low 
and Co., under the title of Round the Sofa, with the “pro- 
logue” and “links” here reprinted. The literary device 
of which Mrs. Gaskell thus made use has commended 
itself to the tellers of stories from the days of Apuleius — 
and no doubt from far earlier days than his — to those 
of Boccaccio and Chaucer; and again from theirs to the 
days of Charles Dickens, who worked it with a will, and 
perhaps rather overworked it, though both “gods” and 
“columns” may be trusted to provide against its ex- 

xii 


“My Lady Ludlow,” etc. 

tinction. In this form the tales in question have been 
repeatedly reprinted. As early as i860 there appeared 
a French translation, by Mme. H. Loreau, under the, of 
course, inevitable title of Autour du Sofa — which sug- 
gests the name of a once famous book, the Voyage autour 
de ma Chambre, by a man of genius, X. de Maistre. 

Although the general idea of the framework of Round 
the Sofa could lay no claim to novelty, a certain bio- 
graphical interest attaches to the particular form in- 
vented for it with ready tact by Mrs. Gaskell. It will 
be remembered that in her younger days, when a girl 
of eighteen or nineteen years of age, she spent a win- 
ter at Edinburgh; and nothing could have been more 
felicitous than the way in which she utilised this tran- 
sient experience for her present purpose. Of course it 
is the old Edinburgh of which she speaks — the Edin- 
burgh of some three-quarters of a century ago, though 
a good many of its old-fashioned ways survived after 
one of those quarters had passed, and some may sur- 
vive even yet, together with the incomparable beauty 
of the city, the greatness of its University, and the 
ancient odours of the Canongate. Most things on the 
southern side must have seemed beautiful in 1830 to 
the young visitor, whose marble counterfeit remains 
as a memento of one beautiful sight there was to 
be seen in the Scottish capital that winter; but her 
opportunities of enlarging her experience of the world 
must still have been limited. Mrs. Dawson’s Monday 
evenings, we learn, were of a quite unpretentious kind; 
but the young stranger who does duty as preludist con- 
fesses that “if it had been to spend an evening at the 
dentist’s, I believe I should have- welcomed the invita- 
tion, so weary was I of the nights in our lodgings.” 
And, indeed, Edinburgh householders used to have a 


Introduction 

way of secluding their establishments which, as I well 
remember, rendered them ideal localities in which to 
prepare for an examination, for an unobserved exit from 
this life. Equally true to one’s remembrances of old 
Edinburgh and some aspects of its “society” are the 
figures of Mr. Sperano, the Italian exile and teacher of 
his native tongue, and of the wife of Mr. Preston, the 
Westmorland squire — not Mr. Preston himself — who 
had come to the northern Athens for the education of 
their numerous children.* 

The story of My Lady Ludlow , far the longest of 
those contained in the present volume, only just, as it 
seems to me, misses making good its claim to rank 
among the more important works of its writer. Mrs.. 
Gaskell was strongly attracted to old-world figures like 
that of the high-bred and high-spirited, but at heart 
God-fearing and humble, chdtelaine of this pathetic tale. 
Somewhere — I think in a letter to Dickens — she writes 
that she would find pleasure in describing the life of a 
country squire of many ancestors and acres; and in 
My Lady Ludlow she found a figure exactly to her 
taste. “Very small of stature, and very upright,” 
this quaint but commanding little personage in the 
great lace cap, black silk mode gown and quilted laven- 
der petticoat, with her great gold-headed cane, more 

* By the way, Margaret Dawson, who tells the story of My 
Lady Ludlow, incidentally states that she has “never seen the 
sea” — not a very probable thing in the case of even an invalid 
inhabiting Edinburgh. Mrs. Gaskell, like Thackeray, was not 
over-careful in small things; at times the imaginative powers 
get the uppermost over an accurate memory. In this very 
story, Mr. Horner the agent’s wife sinks so rapidly that we are 
never expressly told about her death — another illustration of 
the swiftness with which an imagination, which never gives itself 
rest, is apt to forge ahead. 


xiv 


“ My Lady Ludlow,” etc. 

for dignity than for use, has walked straight out of the 
gilt frame round her portrait by Romney or Hoppner 
into our story. It is she, not the late Earl, her husband, 
who spent so much of her income on improving his 
Scotch estates, or his successor, the diplomatist absentee 
— the last of their nine children, whom she is to survive — - 
that holds sway at H anbury Court, and in the village 
of which she esteems herself the “liege lady”; to her 
both estate and supremacy come by right of inheritance, 
and she has identified herself with the traditions and 
the duties of place and position for good and all. She 
had at one time been lady of honour to good Queen 
Charlotte, but had hardly more in common with 
that admirable, though rather insipid, mother of a very 
large family, than had the excellent Medlicott with the 
formidable Schwellenberg of Fanny Burney’s Diary.* 
The character of Lady Ludlow is drawn with great skill 
and delicacy, and even tenderness; if it fails in com- 
pletely carrying away — or, as the phrase is, “ convincing” 
— the reader, the cause may probably be found in the 
disproportion between My Lady’s educational theories 
and general social philosophy, the origin which she 
ascribes to them, and the process by which they are 
finally uprooted. These factors may alike be necessary 
for the purposes of the story, which as such cannot be 
said to be very well or evenly constructed; and (what 
is of greater moment) they are, it must be conceded, 
all brought into action by means of the very best scene 
in the whole story. The arraignment of little Harry 
Gregson, the gipsy poacher’s son, who, to My Lady’s 

*Mrs. Medlicott, if anything, comes nearer to Madam John- 
son, the housekeeper in Crabbe’s “Silford Hall” {Posthumous 
Tales ) : 

“ — distinguish’d from the rest 
By grandeur in her look, and state that she possess’d.’* 
xv 


Introduction 

horror, has been secretly taught reading and writing, and 
on the principle — 

“ Please, my lady, I always hearken when I hear folk talking 
secrets; but I mean no harm” — 

has possessed himself of the contents of a letter entrusted 
to him for delivery, is one of the most irresistible, and 
at the same time one of the subtlest, things in modern 
fiction — I will not say in educational literature ! But 
though thus set in motion, the mechanism does not 
work with the consummate ease which in general is 
second nature to Mrs. Gaskell. Lady Ludlow’s preju- 
dices, as Dryden said of Jeremy Collier’s strictures, 
were “urged a step too far the narrative by which 
she seeks to justify them has obviously no very close 
connexion with them; and we know that she will get 
rid of them in spite of it — or rather, without any reference 
to it. 

We shall probably not err in concluding that in this 
story Mrs. Gaskell either attempted too much, or allowed 
herself insufficient space and time for harmonising all 
that she attempted. It is not, of course, that the reader 
is unwilling, on the pretext of Lady Ludlow’s desire to 
point a moral, to be taken away from worthy Mr. Gray 
and his pastoral troubles, into the midst of the “Terror” 
of the French Revolution. Carlyle’s marvellous book 
had impressed Mrs. Gaskell as it impressed Dickens, 
whose singularly powerful Tale of Two Cities , curi- 
ously enough, made its appearance in Household 
Words in the year following on that of the publication 
of My Lady Ludlow in the same journal.* And the 
details of this thrilling episode are elaborated with the 

* The continued cordiality between the two writers is marked 
by Margaret Dawson’s humorous reference to Mrs. Nickleby. 

xvi 


“My Lady Ludlow,” etc. 

care never absent from Mrs. Gaskell’s literary excursions 
into French life, past or present. But the story of 
Clement and Virginie de Crequy remains an episode 
only; and we have hardly turned the page, when we 
are asked to interest ourselves once more in the vicissi- 
tudes of the Hanbury estate and its agency, and in the 
oddities of Miss Galindo, with the history of their raison 
d'etre. We are again quite ready to do so; for Miss 
Galindo, whose eccentricity is not quite in the line of 
humorous creation most congenial to Mrs. Gaskell, is, 
notwithstanding, a true bit of humanity; but we are 
obliged to confess to ourselves that the varied interest, 
the swift play of humour, and the intensity of feeling 
which mark this interesting story, fail to make up in 
sum for its chief defect — a want of balance in its con- 
struction, discernible in the midst of its many and 
characteristic beauties. 

The second contribution to the Hexameron, Round 
the Sofa , is the paper entitled An Accursed Race. 
It purports to have been prepared for the (Edinburgh) 
Philosophical Society; and, inasmuch as the author, 
Mr. Dawson, was an old and respected fellow-citizen, 
it no doubt there received a less chilling welcome than 
that with which the august society in question used to 
chasten the elation of young lecturers invited to address 
it. Mr. Dawson’s lecture had been “in a great measure 
compiled from a French book, published by one of the 
Academies” — very possibly from Francisque Michel’s 
Histoire des races maudites de la France et d'Espagne 
(2 vols., Paris, 1847). The researches of which so 
luminous and interesting an abstract is given in Mrs. 
Gaskell’s sketch were, however, materially supple- 
mented by the publication, in 1876, of M. V. de Rochas’s 


xvn 


Introduction 


work on Les P arias de France et d’Espagne ( Cagots et 
Bohemiens); which was in its turn summarised in an 
excellent article by M. L. Louis-Lande in the Revue 
des Deux Mondes (vol. xxv., 1878). M. de Rochas, 
at the time an active member of a young scientific 
society at Pau, had taken a hint from an eighteenth 
century savant named Palasson, and had brought a 
careful personal physiological enquiry to bear upon a 
problem which antiquarian learning had hitherto failed 
to settle satisfactorily. Thus, while Mr. Dawson and 
Mrs. Gaskell, following their authorities, seem to regard 
the explanation that the Cagots were originally lepers 
as merely one of several more or less plausible theories 
proposed by way of accounting for the widespread per- 
secution of this unfortunate race during many centuries, 
there can now be no doubt but that there is no other 
admissible solution of the question. This is not the place 
in which to attempt to explain the distinctions drawn 
by modern medical science between leprosy proper, the 
loathsome disease of common occurrence in Western 
Europe in the earlier Middle Ages, and the mere tradi- 
tions of that disease which by descent or “equivocal 
symptoms” clung to large bodies of population free 
from the actual disease itself. Such were the Cagots 
or Agotes of Bearn, Navarre, and Aragon, the Gafets 
or Gahets of Guienne, and the Cacoux or Caqueux of 
Brittany. The difficulty (if there is such a thing as 
difficulty in the diversions of etymology) as to the 
derivation of these names, I must — though unconscious 
of superstitious restraints — decline from so much as 
approaching; but I will take leave to cite a single sen- 
tence from M. Louis-Lande, which would, I think, have 
commended itself to Mrs. Gaskell, and which will ex- 
plain what to some readers of her admirable paper might 


xvm 


“My Lady Ludlow,” etc. 

seem a strange application of a blessed name to an “ac- 
cursed race.” If the solution advocated by the French 
reviewer is the true one, then — 

“The name of chrestiaa , chrestian , chrestien is nothing else than a 
charitable euphemism for designating lepers — in the same way 
as fr&re malau (jrfre malade), or, better still, as ladre, an abbrevia- 
tion of Lazare (Lazarus). Lepers were called pauperes Christi, 
pauperes Sancti Lazari — in the vulgar tongue, les pauvres du 
Christ, les pauvres de Saint Ladre; and, if gradually the one word 
ladres came to be used by them, there is no reason why chrestian 
or chrestien should not have alike been an abbreviation of the 
other formula, les pauvres du Christ. The term Christiannerie 
was certainly employed to signify a hospital or community of 
lepers, together with the terms maladrerie and mezellerie (from 
the old French mezel [Anglice: ‘measel’], a leper.’! 

The essence of Mrs. Gaskell’s account oi An Accursed 
Race remains unaffected by any additional light that 
may have been thrown upon its details by historical or 
linguistic enquiry. As she says at the beginning of her 
paper, we may not “have been so bad as our Continental 
friends’’ — she might have added, especially those of the 
Latin race — in the way of persecution. But, as she 
likewise says, we too “have our prejudices;” and she 
was herself well fitted, by the associations of her life and 
by the serene humanity of her nature, to hold up to the 
abhorrence of English readers an awful example of that 
intolerance from which few, if any, nations have refrained, 
and from which hardly a single creed has consistently 
sought to keep its adherents free. 

Little or nothing need be said by way of introduction 
to any of the three tales which follow, alike instinct 
with imaginative force, and alike tinged with a melan- 
choly difficult to resist in treating of human beings 
at issue with their destiny. The scene of The Doom 


XIX 


Introduction 


of the Griffiths is laid in a gloomy valley in North Wales, 
running down from fir-woods, seemingly impenetrable, 
to the mist-shrouded vicinity of the sea. Here is enacted 
in pursuance of a curse ascribed to the half-legendary 
times of the great chieftain who “could summon spirits 
from the vasty deep,” a homely (Edipodean tragedy 
of half-conscious crime and of woe unutterable. To 
my mind, however, Half a Lifetime Ago, which plays 
in the midst of scenery consecrated to so many of us by 
associations of which Mrs. Gaskell’s love of it forms part, 
exhibits a far more powerful, and at the same time a 
far more attractive, aspect of her genius. Susan Dixon, 
the Westmorland “ Stateswoman ” — I wonder whether 
“her house is yet to be seen on the Oxenfell road, between 
Skelwith and Coniston”? — is also called upon to struggle 
against her fate; but the difficulty which she has to face, 
and which she overcomes at the cost of a broken heart, 
is that of the old conflict between duty (rightly or 
wrongly seen) and affection (worthily or unworthily 
bestowed). The conflict is a real one, and the figure 
of Susan Dixon that of a true and noble-hearted 
woman; while the solution which this pathetic trag- 
edy finds is in harmony with the eternal laws of justice 
and mercy that “banish the ghosts from the haunted 
hearth.” 

The third, and much the longest, of these stories, 
The Poor Clare , carries us still nearer home, to scenes 
most familiar to the authoress, and naturally haunted 
by her imagination. The north-east of Lancashire — 
and especially that part of it which adjoins the Craven 
district, the home proper of the Lancashire witches of 
Elizabethan days, and which includes the so-called Trough 
of Bolland or Bowland, where lay Starkey Manor-house — • 

XX 


“My Lady Ludlow,” etc. 

is, or used to be, a strangely isolated part of the county. 
The late William Arnold, who, as I see from his recently 
published memoir, was fond of exploring the Trough 
(he compares its name to that of the Trouee de Belfort ), 
speaks of it as “the least known district of all England.” 
The gentry hereabouts long comprised (and probably 
still comprises) a considerable Roman Catholic element. 
Stonyhurst, mentioned in the story, owes its origin as 
an important seat of Catholic higher education to this 
circumstance. As a matter of course, in the days to 
which the historiographer of The Poor Clare looks 
back, Jacobitism largely prevailed here, as it did in so 
many parts of Lancashire. No locality could, therefore, 
have been more appropriately chosen for a story 
in which faith and superstition, bitter hatred and 
passionate devotion, are the “antithetically mix’d” 
ingredients. 

Bridget Fitzgerald, however, the unhappy mother 
whose mysterious sin with its wonderful expiation is the 
real theme of this tragic tale, is Irish-born, and dies as 
Sister Magdalen in the Antwerp convent of the Poor 
Clares. I cannot tell what suggested to Mrs. Gaskell the 
invention of the striking close of her story. The Poor 
Clares — the second Order of St. Francis, called the 
Povere Donne , or, in French, Clarisses — in the second 
quarter of the fifteenth century returned, especially in 
Flanders and in France, to the unmitigated rule of their 
foundress, whose rigours towards herself her very en- 
sample, St. Francis, sought to restrict; and, even at the 
present day, I believe, much of the severity of that rule is 
maintained. That during any troubles in the Austrian 
Netherlands, at Antwerp or elsewhere, the Sisters should 
have enjoyed the respect of both the insurgents and the 
Austrian soldiery, is quite in accordance with probability ; 


XXI 


Introduction 

but the particular occasion of these troubles, somewhere 
towards the middle of the eighteenth century, is left 
conveniently vague. Though the French Revolution 
probably swept away their convent at Antwerp, as it 
did most of their houses elsewhere,* some of these, I 
learn, survived in Austria; their activity in Ireland 
(where they are known as admirable lace-makers) is 
well known; and a few of their communities are to be 
found in England. Among these is one at Levenshulme, 
within a quarter of an hour’s walk from Plymouth Grove, 
Manchester; and it is quite possible that this circum- 
stance may have suggested to Mrs. Gaskell the form 
given by her to the final episode of her story. 

The last of the Round the Sofa tales is another 
adventure of the Fells, in which, as in The Old Nurse's 
Story , a snowstorm plays — this time a tragic — part. 
The Half-Brothers is endeared to those best acquainted 
with the heights and depths of Mrs. Gaskell’s nature, 
because this story seems to them to typify the spirit 
of self-sacrifice which pervaded her life. It illustrates 
a famous passage in Thomas h Kempis ( Imitation of 
Christ , chap, xlix,, sections 4 and 5) which she was 
accustomed to cite with peculiar solemnity — the passage 
beginning, “That which pleaseth others shall go well 
forward; that which pleaseth thee shall not speed,” 
etc. Herself a stranger to the passion of envy — like the 
sister- fury of jealousy, one of the chief enemies of all 
human happiness — she knew what it meant to recog- 
nise its approach, and to set a firm foot on its monstrous 
neck. 

* By the way, the “Place de Meir,” where the story locates 
the convent of the Poor Clares at Antwerp, should, it seems, read 
Meir Straet,” which, though a great street, is not a square, 
xxii 


“My Lady Ludlow,” etc. 

The difference between sentimentalism and a pathos 
which wells up resistlessly by the side of a humour 
equally spontaneous, and equally true, was never more 
clearly shown than in the delightful little story which 
follows in the present volume, and for which, in its way, 
no praise could be excessive. It should be noted that 
Mr. Harrison's Confessions does not appear here in 
its proper place of chronological sequence; but it is 
only quite recently that the indefatigable bibliographer- 
in-chief of Mrs. Gaskell’s publications has discovered 
that the story made its first appearance in a monthly 
magazine, entitled The Ladies' Companion* at as 
early a date as February, March, and April, 1851. Mr. 
Harrison's Confessions , although the story first became 
widely known when reprinted by Messrs. Chapman & 
Hall with Lizzie Leigh , and other Tales , in 1855, was 
therefore anterior in date of publication, and doubt- 
less also in date of production, to Cranford , of which 
a scientific literary biographer would very probably in- 
cline to classify it as a “ Vorstudie." Duncombe is 
manifestly Knutsford — and I am glad that the volume 
of Mrs. Gaskell’s works containing her earliest descrip- 
tion of the little Cheshire town and its life should be 
illustrated by a drawing of the house which was the 
home of Mrs. Gaskell during so many years. The charm- 
ing drawing of Mrs. Lumb’s house included in this vol- 
ume is by Mr. Watt, to whose kindness this edition thus 
owes a twofold debt. The old doctor in the story (an- 
other variety of the profession of which Mrs. Gaskell 

* Mr. W. E. A. Axon, to whom many thanks are due for the 
communication of this interesting discovery, writes that The 
Ladies' Companion was a very good magazine of its kind, 
the Howitts, H. F. Charles, and Mrs. J. K. Hervey being among 
the contributors. 

xxiii 


Introduction 

had so early a knowledge) tells his young partner — 

“You will find it a statistical fact, but five-sixths of our house- 
holders of a certain rank in Duncombe are women. We have 
widows and old maids in rich abundance. In fact, my dear sir, 
I believe that you and I are almost the only gentlemen in the 
place — Mr. Bullock [the lawyer], of course, excepted” — 

and the entire little story is not less unmistakably in 
the Cranford manner so familiar to us all. Yet the 
merits of the earlier production are such as to be per- 
fectly self-supporting. Here and there its comedy is 
just a little broader than that of Cranford; and the 
situation at the height of the plot, when the hero is 
surrounded by ladies who, or whose parents, have 
marked him for their own, is pure farce. The diction, 
too, to say nothing of the action, of Mr. John Marsland 
of Guy’s, and a phrase or two at the opening of the 
story, betray a rather conventional conception of a 
happily extinct species of medical student. On the 
other hand, there is in this charming little story a touch 
of the influence of Dickens at his very best and tenderest 
— in other words, an unconscious remembrance of some 
of the exquisite love-making in that most irresistible of 
all English works of fiction, David Copperfield. But 
the original genius of Mrs. Gaskell fully asserts itself in 
this early effort; nowhere has she drawn a sweeter 
picture than that as seen through the door-frame, of 
Sophy teaching her little brother the alphabet at the 
sunny garden- window ; nowhere has she more pathetic- 
ally touched a chord which vibrates through so much of 
her writing, than in the passage telling of little Walter’s 
death — 

“The street was as quiet as ever; not a shadow was changed; 
for it was not yet four o’clock. But during that night a soul 
had departed. ” 


XXIV 


“My Lady Ludlow,” etc. 

The later passages, describing the anxiety of Sophy’s 
lover for Sophy herself, are nature itself in their truth- 
fulness; and, though the assortment of wedding-bells 
with which the story comes to an end is almost porten- 
tous in its multiplicity, Mr. Harrison's Confessions 
are not too long by a line — a rare thing with reminiscences. 

The last of the short stories reprinted in this volume 
takes us into the humdrum streets of Manchester and 
suburban London ; but the tragic tale here unfolded is 
one which has exercised the imagination of more than one 
writer,* though to most English readers it is best known 
as the story of Enoch Arden. Tennyson’s poem, it 
should be remembered, was published in 1864; Mrs. 
Gaskell’s story of The Manchester Marriage was first 
printed in 1859, in a Boston (U.S.A.) journal bearing 
the name of Littell's Living Age. (It was reprinted 
in this country, in i860, with Right at Last and other 
tales, by Messrs. Sampson Low). On first reading 
Enoch Arden , Mrs. Gaskell was at once struck by 
the resemblance in plot between the poem and her story. 
But in the homely Lancashire version of the theme elab- 
orated by the great poet, when already in the decline of 
his creative power, with a refined delicacy of thought and 
a fluid elegance of diction beneath which the throb of 
human passion remains only just perceptible, the manner 
of treatment is as original as the surroundings are char- 
acteristic. Mrs. Gaskell contrives to furnish her story 
not only with two heroes — the husband and his innocent 
rival, the latter an admirable type of the Lancashire man 
who had been too busy all his days to know that he had 
any tenderness in his nature — but also with a heroine. 

* Among others the German dramatist, Karl von Holtei, 
whose productions were usually in a lighter vein. 

xxv 


Introduction 


This heroine is not Mrs. Openshaw, for whom, as for 
Enoch Arden’s Annie, we hardly know whether to be 
sorry or not — though even this is not her fault — but 
her Lancashire servant Norah, one of those embodiments 
of self-sacrificing faithfulness whom the authoress loved 
to draw. 

It has not been thought expedient to seek permission 
to reprint in this edition two prefaces written by Mrs. 
Gaskell for books produced by other authors. But 
they signally illustrate that variety and vivacity of 
her numerous interests, to which the present volume 
bears exceptional testimony. In 1857 she edited, by 
arrangement with the authoress, Miss Maria S. Cummins, 
well known to many readers of many generations by 
her story of The Lamplighter , a production of the 
same class, bearing the title of Mabel Vaughan. The 
preface (which somehow reads more comfortably at 
the present day than it may have read half a century 
aso) dwells with genial warmth on the closeness of “our 
cousinly connexion with the Americans” — in our pride 
in the noble books which they write, and in the great 
things which they achieve. Neither the authoress of 
Uncle Tom's Cabin , nor the American sailors who 
brought home the Resolute to our shores, are forgotten ; 
and “though I may be thought like the Tanner in the 
old fable who recommended leather as the best means 
of defence for a besieged city, ” the writer has no scruple 
in recommending a free interchange of English and 
American novels as an excellent way by which nations 
may become at home with one another. Mrs. Gaskell 
suited the action to the need ; for it has been seen how 
two of the tales reprinted in this volume made their 
first appearance in American journals. Of less intimate 


XXVI 


“ My Lady Ludlow,” etc. 

interest is a preface written by Mrs. Gaskell to an English 
translation of Colonel Vecehj’s Garibaldi at Caprera , 
published in 1862. It is a picture of the great Liberator’s 
home-life amidst his family and friends, and was intended 
to benefit the funds of the girls’ schools which an 
association of ladies at Turin were seeking, at the in- 
stigation of Garibaldi, to establish at Naples. Unless I 
mistake, the subsequent prosperity of these schools owed 
much to the exertions of Mrs. Salis-Schwabe of Man- 
chester, a friend through whom Mrs. Gaskell may have 
been first interested in the wise and generous thought 
which led to their being instituted. 

A. W. W. 

August, 1906. 


xxvii 


ROUND THE SOFA 

INTRODUCTION TO MY LADY LUDLOW 
AND OTHER STORIES 


Long ago I was placed by my parents under the medical 
treatment of a certain Mr. Dawson, a surgeon in Edinburgh, 
who had obtained a reputation for the cure of a particular 
class of diseases. I was sent with my governess into 
lodgings near his house, in the Old Town. I was to 
combine lessons from the excellent Edinburgh masters, 
with the medicines and exercises needed for my indis- 
position. It was at first rather dreary to leave my brothers 
and sisters, and to give up our merry out-of-doors life with 
our country home, for dull lodgings, with only poor grave 
Miss Duncan for a companion ; and to exchange our romps 
in the garden and rambles through the fields for stiff walks 
in the streets, the decorum of which obliged me to tie my 
bonnet-strings neatly, and put on my shawl with some regard 
to straightness. 

The evenings were the worst. It was autumn, and of 
course they daily grew longer ; they were long enough, I am 
sure, when we first settled down in those grey and drab 
lodgings. For, you must know, my father and mother were 
not rich, and there were a great many of us, and the medical 
expenses to be incurred by my being placed under Mr. 
Dawson’s care were expected to be considerable ; therefore, 
one great point in our search after lodgings was economy. 
My father, who was too true a gentleman to feel false shame, 
had named this necessity for cheapness to Mr. Dawson ; and 

l 3 


Round the Sofa 

in return, Mr. Dawson had told him of those at No. 6 
Cromer Street, in which we were finally settled. The house 
belonged to an old man, at one time a tutor to young men 
preparing for the University, in which capacity he had 
become known to Mr. Dawson. But his pupils had dropped 
off; and, when we went to lodge with him, I imagine that 
his principal support was derived from a few occasional 
lessons which he gave, and from letting the rooms that we 
took, a drawing-room opening into a bedroom, out of which 
a smaller chamber led. His daughter was his housekeeper : 
a son, whom we never saw, was supposed to be leading the 
same life that his father had done before him, only we never 
saw or heard of any pupils ; and there was one hard-working, 
honest little Scottish maiden, square, stumpy, neat, and 
plain, who might have been any age from eighteen to forty. 

Looking back on the household now, there was perhaps 
much to admire in their quiet endurance of decent poverty ; 
but, at this time, their poverty grated against many of my 
tastes, for I could not recognise the fact, that in a town the 
simple graces of fresh flowers, clean white muslin curtains, 
pretty bright chintzes, all cost money, which is saved by the 
adoption of dust-coloured moreen, and mud-coloured carpets. 
There was not a penny spent on mere elegance in that room ; 
yet there was everything considered necessary to comfort : 
but after all, such mere pretences of comfort ! a hard, 
slippery, black horsehair sofa, which was no place of rest ; 
an old piano, serving as a sideboard ; a grate, narrowed by an 
inner supplement, till it hardly held a handful of the small 
coal which could scarcely ever be stirred up into a genial 
blaze. But there were two evils worse than even this cold- 
ness and bareness of the rooms : one was that we were 
provided with a latch-key, which allowed us to open the 
front door whenever we came home from a walk, and go up- 
stairs without meeting any face of welcome, or hearing the 
sound of a human voice in the apparently deserted house — 
Mr. Mackenzie piqued himself on the noiselessness of his 
establishment ; and the other, which might almost seem to 

2 


Round the Sofa 

neutralise the first, was the danger we were always exposed 
to on going out, of the old man — sly, miserly, and intelligent 
— popping out upon us from his room, close to the left hand 
of the door, with some civility which we learned to distrust 
as a mere pretext for extorting more money, yet which it 
was difficult to refuse : such as the offer of any books out of 
his library, a great temptation, for we could 'see into the 
shelf-lined room ; but, just as we were on the point of yield- 
ing, there was a hint of the “ consideration ” to be expected 
for the loan of books of so much higher a class than any to 
be obtained at the circulating library, which made us sud- 
denly draw back. Another time he came out of his den to 
offer us written cards, to distribute among our acquaintance, 
on which he undertook to teach the very things I was to 
learn ; but I would rather have been the most ignorant 
woman that ever lived than tried to learn anything from that 
old fox in breeches. When we had declined all his proposals, 
he went apparently into dudgeon. Once, when we had for- 
gotten our latch-key, we rang in vain for many times at the 
door, seeing our landlord standing all the time at the window 
to the right, looking out of it in an absent and philosophical 
state of mind, from which no signs and gestures of ours 
could arouse him. 

The women of the household were far better, and more 
really respectable, though even on them poverty had laid her 
heavy left hand, instead of her blessing right. Miss Mac- 
kenzie kept us as short in our food as she decently could— 
we paid so much a week for our board, be it observed ; and 
if one day we had less appetite than another our meals were 
docked to the smaller standard, until Miss Duncan ventured 
to remonstrate. The sturdy maid-of-all-work was scrupu- 
lously honest, but looked discontented, and scarcely vouch- 
safed us thanks, when on leaving we gave her what Mrs. 
Dawson had told us would be considered handsome in most, 
lodgings. I do not believe Phenice ever received wages from 
the Mackenzies. 

But that dear Mrs. Dawson ! The mention of her 

3 


Round the Sofa 

comes into my mind like the bright sunshine into our 
dingy little drawing-room came on those days ; — as a sweet 
scent of violets greets the sorrowful passer among the 
woodlands. 

Mrs. Dawson was not Mr. Dawson’s wife, for he was a 
bachelor. She was his crippled sister, an old maid, who had, 
what she called, taken her brevet rank. 

After we had been about a fortnight in Edinburgh, Mr. 
Dawson said, in a sort of half-doubtful manner, to Miss 
Duncan — 

“ My sister bids me say, that every Monday evening a 
few friends come in to sit round her sofa for an hour or so, — 
some before going to gayer parties— and that if you and Miss 
Greatorex would like a little change, she would only be too 
glad to see you. Any time from seven to eight to-night ; 
and I must add my injunctions, both for her sake, and for 
that of my little patient’s, here, that you leave at nine o’clock. 
After all, I do not know if you will care to come ; but Mar- 
garet bade me ask you ; ” and he glanced up suspiciously 
and sharply at us. If either of us had felt the slightest 
reluctance, however well disguised by manner, to accept this 
invitation, I am sure he would have at once detected our 
feelings, and withdrawn it; so jealous and chary was he 
of anything pertaining to the appreciation of this beloved 
sister. 

But, if it had been to spend an evening at the dentist’s, I 
believe I should have welcomed the invitation, so weary was 
I of the monotony of the nights in our lodgings ; and as for 
Miss Duncan, an invitation to tea was of itself a pure and 
unmixed honour, and one to be accepted with all becoming 
form and gratitude : so Mr. Dawson’s sharp glances over his 
spectacles failed to detect anything but the truest pleasure, 
and he went on. 

“ You’ll find it very dull, I dare say. Only a few old 
fogies like myself, and one or two good, sweet young women ; 
I never know who’ll come. Margaret is obliged to lie in a 
darkened room — only half-lighted, I mean — because her 

4 


Round the Sofa 

eyes are weak, — oh, it will be very stupid, I dare say ; don’t 
thank me till you’ve been once and tried it, and then if you 
like it, your best thanks will be, to come again every 
Monday, from half-past seven to nine, you know. Good-bye, 
good-bye.” 

Hitherto I had never been out to a party of grown-up 
people ; and no court- ball to a London young lady could 
seem more redolent of honour and pleasure than this Monday 
evening to me. 

Dressed out in new stiff book-muslin, made up to my throat 
— a frock which had seemed to me and my sisters the height 
of earthly grandeur and finery — Alice, our old nurse, had been 
making it at home, in contemplation of the possibility of such 
an event during my stay in Edinburgh, but which had then 
appeared to me a robe too lovely and angelic to be ever worn 
short of heaven — I went with Miss Duncan to Mr. Dawson’s 
at the appointed time. We entered through one small lofty 
room — perhaps I ought to call it an antechamber, for the 
house was old-fashioned, and stately and grand — the large 
square drawing-room, into the centre of which Mrs. Dawson’s 
sofa was drawn. Behind her a little was placed a table with 
a great cluster candlestick upon it, bearing seven or eight 
wax-lights ; and that was all the light in the room, which 
looked to me very vast and indistinct after our pinched-up 
apartment at the Mackenzies’. Mrs. Dawson must have 
been sixty ; and yet her face looked very soft and smooth 
and child-like. Her hair was quite grey : it would have 
looked white but for the snowiness of her cap, and satin 
ribbon. She was wrapped in a kind of dressing-gown of 
French grey merino; the furniture of the room was deep 
rose-colour, and white and gold, — the paper which covered 
the walls was Indian, beginning low down with a profusion 
of tropical leaves and birds and insects, and gradually 
diminishing in richness of detail, till at the top it ended in the 
most delicate tendrils and most filmy insects. 

Mr. Dawson had acquired much riches in his profession, 
and his house gave one this impression. In the corners of 

5 


Round the Sofa 

the rooms were great jars of Eastern china, filled with 
flower-leaves and spices ; and in the middle of all this was 
placed the sofa, on which poor Margaret Dawson passed 
whole days, and months, and years, without the power of 
moving by herself. By-and-by Mrs. Dawson’s maid brought 
in tea and macaroons for us, and a little cup of milk and 
water and a biscuit for her. Then the door opened. We 
had come very early, and in came Edinburgh professors, 
Edinburgh beauties, and celebrities, all on their way to some 
other gayer and later party, but coming first to see Mrs. 
Dawson, and tell her their bon-mots , or their interests, or 
their plans. By each learned man, by each lovely girl, she 
was treated as a dear friend, who knew something more 
about their own individual selves, independent of their 
reputation and general society- character, than any one else. 

It was very brilliant and very dazzling, and gave enough 
to think about and wonder about for many days. 

Monday after Monday we went, stationary, silent ; what 
could we find to say to any one but Mrs. Margaret herself ? 
Winter passed, summer was coming ; still I was ailing, and 
weary of my life ; but still Mr. Dawson gave hopes of my 
ultimate recovery. My father and mother came and went ; 
but they could not stay long, they had so many claims upon 
them. Mrs. Margaret Dawson had become my dear friend, 
although, perhaps, I had never exchanged as many words 
with her as I had with Miss Mackenzie ; but then with Mrs. 
Dawson every word was a pearl or a diamond. 

People began to drop off from Edinburgh, only a few 
were left, and I am not sure if our Monday evenings were 
not all the pleasanter. 

There was Mr. Sperano, the Italian exile, banished even 
from France, where he had long resided, and now teaching 
Italian with meek diligence in the northern city ; there was 
Mr. Preston, the Westmoreland squire, or, as he preferred to 
be called, statesman, whose wife had come to Edinburgh for 
the education of their numerous family, and who, whenever 
her husband had come over on one of his occasional visits, 

6 


Round the Sofa 

was only too glad to accompany him to Mrs. Dawson’s 
Monday evenings, he and the invalid lady having been 
friends from long ago. These and ourselves kept steady 
visitors, and enjoyed ourselves all the more from having the 
more of Mrs. Dawson’s society. 

One evening I had brought the little stool close to her 
sofa, and was caressing her thin white hand, when the 
thought came into my head and out I spoke it. 

“ Tell me, dear Mrs. Dawson,” said I, “ how long you 
have been in Edinburgh ; you do not speak Scotch, and Mr. 
Dawson says he is not Scotch.” 

“ No, I am Lancashire — Liverpool-born,” said she, 
smiling. “ Don’t you hear it in my broad tongue ? ” 

“ I hear something different to other people, but I like it 
because it is just you ; is that Lancashire ? ” 

“ I dare say it is ; for, though I am sure Lady Ludlow 
took pains enough to correct me in my younger days, I never 
could get rightly over the accent.” 

“ Lady Ludlow,” said I, “ what had she to do with you ? 
I heard you talking about her to Lady Madeline Stuart the 
first evening I ever came here ; you and she seemed so fond 
of Lady Ludlow ; who is she ? ” 

“ She is dead, my child ; dead long ago.” 

I felt sorry I had spoken about her, Mrs. Dawson looked 
so grave and sad. I suppose she perceived my sorrow, for 
she went on and said — 

“ My dear, I like to talk and to think of Lady Ludlow : 
she was my true, kind friend and benefactress for many 
years ; ask me what you like about her, and do not think 
you give me pain.” 

I grew bold at this. 

“ Will you tell me all about her, then, please, Mrs. 
Dawson ? ” 

“Nay,” said she, smiling, “ that would be too long a 
story. Here are Signor Sperano and Miss Duncan, and Mr. 
and Mrs. Preston are coming to-night, Mr. Preston told me ; 
how would they like to hear an old-world story which, after 

7 


Round the Sofa 

all, would be no story at all, neither beginning, nor middle, 
nor end, only a bundle of recollections.” 

“ If you speak of me, madame,” said Signor Sperano, “ I 
can only say you do me one great honour by recounting in 
my presence anything about any person that has ever 
interested you.” 

Miss Duncan tried to say something of the same kind. 
In the middle of her confused speech, Mr. and Mrs. Preston 
came in. I sprang up ; I went to meet them. 

“ Oh,” said I, “ Mrs. Dawson is just going to tell us all 
about Lady Ludlow, and a great deal more, only she is 
afraid it won’t interest anybody ; do say you would like to 
hear it ! ” 

Mrs. Dawson smiled at me, and in reply to their urgency 
she promised to tell us all about Lady Ludlow, on condition 
that each one of us should, after she had ended, narrate 
something interesting, which we had either heard, or which 
had fallen within our own experience. We all promised 
willingly, and then gathered round her sofa to hear what she 
could tell us about my Lady Ludlow. 


8 


MY LADY LUDLOW 


• CHAPTER I 

I am an old woman now, and things are very different to 
what they were in my youth. Then we, who travelled, 
travelled in coaches, carrying six inside, and making a two 
days’ journey out of what people now go over in a couple of 
hours with a whizz and a flash, and a screaming whistle, 
enough to deafen one. Then letters came in but three times 
a week ; indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have 
stayed when I was a girl, the post came in but once a month ; 
but letters were letters then ; and we made great prizes of 
them, and read them and studied them like books. Now the 
post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short, jerky notes, 
some without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sen- 
tence, which well-bred folks would think too abrupt to be 
spoken. Well, well ! they may all be improvements — I dare 
say they are ; but you will never meet with a Lady Ludlow 
in these days. 

I will try and tell you about her. It is no story : it has, 
as I said, neither beginning, middle, nor end. 

My father was a poor clergyman with a large family. 
My mother was always said to have good blood in her veins ; 
and when she wanted to maintain her position with the 
people she was thrown among — principally rich democratic 
manufacturers, all for liberty and the French Eevolution — 
she would put on a pair of ruffles, trimmed with real old 
English point, very much darned to be sure— but which 
could not be bought new for love or money, as the art of 
making it was lost years before. These ruffles showed, as 
she said, that her ancestors had been Somebodies, when the 

9 


My Lady Ludlow 

grandfathers of the rich folk, who now looked down upon 
her, had been Nobodies— if, indeed, they had any grand- 
fathers at all. I don’t know whether any one out of our 
own family ever noticed these ruffles — but we were all 
taught as children to feel rather proud when my mother put 
them on, and to hold up our heads as became the descen- 
dants of the lady who had first possessed the lace. Not but 
what my dear father often told us that pride was a great 
sin ; we were never allowed to be proud of anything but my 
mother’s ruffles ; and she was so innocently happy when she 
put them on — often, poor dear creature, to a very worn and 
threadbare gown — that I still think, even after all my ex- 
perience of life, they were a blessing to the family. You 
will think that I am wandering away from my Lady Ludlow. 
Not at all. The lady who had owned the lace, Ursula Han- 
bury, was a common ancestress of both my mother and my 
Lady Ludlow. And so it fell out, that when my poor father 
died, and my mother was sorely pressed to know what to do 
with her nine children, and looked far and wide for signs of 
willingness to help, Lady Ludlow sent her a letter, proffering 
aid and assistance. I see that letter now : a large sheet of 
thick yellow paper, with a straight broad margin left on the 
left-hand side of the delicate Italian writing — writing which 
contained far more in the same space of paper than all the 
sloping, or masculine handwritings of the present day. It 
was sealed with a coat of arms — a lozenge — for Lady Lud- 
low was a widow. My mother made us notice the motto, 
“ Foy et Loy,” and told us where to look for the quarter- 
ings of the Hanbury arms before she opened the letter. 
Indeed, I think she was rather afraid of what the contents 
might be ; for, as I have said, in her anxious love for her 
fatherless children, she had written to many people upon 
whom, to tell truly, she had but little claim ; and their cold 
hard answers had many a time made her cry, when she 
thought none of us were looking. I do not even know if 
she had ever seen Lady Ludlow : all I knew of her was that 
she was a very grand lady, whose grandmother had been 

io 


My Lady Ludlow 

half-sister to my mother’s great-grandmother; but of her 
character and circumstances I heard nothing, and I doubt if 
my mother was acquainted with them. 

I looked over my mother’s shoulder to read the letter ; it 
began, “ Dear Cousin Margaret Dawson,” and T think I felt 
hopeful from the moment I saw those words. She went on 
to say — stay, I think I can remember the very words — 

“ Dear Cousin Margaret Dawson, — I have been much 
grieved to hear of the loss you have sustained in the death 
of so good a husband, and so excellent a clergyman as I have 
always heard that my late cousin Richard was esteemed 
to be.” 

“ There ! ” said my mother, laying her finger on the 
passage, “ read that aloud to the little ones. Let them hear 
how their father’s good report travelled far and wide, and 
how well he is spoken of by one whom he never saw. 
Cousin Richard,, how prettily her ladyship writes ! Go on, 
Margaret ! ” She wiped her eyes as she spoke, and laid 
her fingers on her lips, to still my little sister, Cecily, who, 
not understanding anything about the important letter, was 
beginning to talk and make a noise. 

“You say you are left with nine children. I too should 
have had nine, if mine had all lived. I have none left but 
Rudolph, the present Lord Ludlow. He is married, and 
lives, for the most part, in London. But I entertain six 
young gentlewomen at my house at Connington, who are 
to me as daughters — save that, perhaps, I restrict them in 
certain indulgences in dress and diet that might be befitting 
in young ladies of a higher rank, and of more probable 
wealth. These young persons — all of condition, though out 
of means — are my constant companions, and I strive to do 
my duty as a Christian lady towards them. One of these 
young gentlewomen died (at her own home, whither she had 
gone upon a visit) last May. Will you do me the favour to 
allow your eldest daughter to supply her place in my house- 
hold? She is, as I make out, about sixteen years of age. 


ii 


My Lady Ludlow 

She will find companions here who are but a little older than 
herself. I dress my young friends myself, and make each of 
them a small allowance for pocket- money. They have but 
few opportunities for matrimony, as Connington is far 
removed from any town. The clergyman is a deaf old 
widower ; my agent is married ; and as for the neighbouring 
farmers, they are, of course, below the notice of the young 
gentlewomen under my protection. Still, if any young woman 
wishes to marry, and has conducted herself to my satisfac- 
tion, I give her a wedding dinner, her clothes, and her house- 
linen. And such as remain with me to my death will find a 
small competency provided for them in my will. I reserve 
to myself the option of paying their travelling expenses — dis- 
liking gadding women, on the one hand ; on the other, not 
wishing by too long absence from the family home to weaken 
natural ties. 

“ If my proposal pleases you and your daughter — or 
rather, if it pleases you, for I trust your daughter has been 
too well brought up to have a will in opposition to yours — 
let me know, dear cousin Margaret Dawson, and I will 
make arrangements for meeting the young gentlewoman at 
Cavistock, which is the nearest point to which the coach will 
bring her.” 

My mother dropped the letter and sat silent. 

“ I shall not know what to do without you, Margaret.” 

A moment before, like a young untried girl as I was, I 
had been pleased at the notion of seeing a new place, and 
leading a new life. But now — my mother’s look of sorrow, 
and the children’s cry of remonstrance : “ Mother, I won’t 
go,” I said. 

“Nay! but you had better,” replied she, shaking her 
head. “ Lady Ludlow has much power. She can help your 
brothers. It will not do to slight her offer.” 

So we accepted it, after much consultation. We were 
rewarded — or so we thought — for afterwards, when I came 
to know Lady Ludlow, I saw that she would have done her 


12 


My Lady Ludlow 

duty by us, as helpless relations, however we might have 
rejected her kindness — by a presentation to Christ’s Hospital 
for one of my brothers. 

And this was how I came to know my Lady Ludlow. 

I remember well the afternoon of my arrival at Hanbury 
Court. Her ladyship had sent to meet me at the nearest 
post-town at which the mail-coach stopped. There was an 
old groom inquiring for me, the ostler said, if my name was 
Dawson — from Hanbury Court, he believed. I felt it rather 
formidable ; and first began to understand what was meant 
by going among strangers, when I lost sight of the guard to 
whom my mother had intrusted me. I was perched up in a 
high gig with a hood to it, such as in those days was called 
a chair, and my companion was driving deliberately through 
the most pastoral country I had ever yet seen. By-and-by 
we ascended a long hill, and the man got out and walked at 
the horse’s head. I should have liked to walk, too, very 
much indeed ; but I did not know how far I might do it ; 
and, in fact, I dared not speak to ask to be helped down the 
deep steps of the gig. We were at last at the top — on a 
long, breezy, sweeping, unenclosed piece of ground, called, 
as I afterwards learnt, a Chase. The groom stopped, breathed, 
patted his horse, and then mounted again to my side. 

“ Are we near Hanbury Court ? ” I asked. 

“ Near ! Why, Miss ! we’ve a matter of ten mile yet 
to go.” 

Once launched into conversation, we went on pretty 
glibly. I fancy he had been afraid of beginning to speak to 
me, just as I was to him ; but he got over his shyness with 
me sooner than I did mine with him. I let him choose the 
subjects of conversation, although very often I could not 
understand the points of interest in them : for instance, he 
talked for more than a quarter of an hour of a famous race 
which a certain dog-fox had given him, above thirty years 
before ; and spoke of all the covers and turns just as if I 
knew them as well as he did; and all the time I was 
wondering what kind of an animal a dog-fox might be. 

i3 


My Lady Ludlow 

After we left the Chase, the road grew worse. No one in 
these days, who has not seen the byroads of fifty years ago, 
can imagine what they were. We had to quarter, as Randal 
called it, nearly all the way along the deep-rutted, miry 
lanes ; and the tremendous jolts I occasionally met with 
made my seat in the gig so unsteady that I could not look 
about me at all, I was so much occupied in holding on. The 
road was too muddy for me to walk without dirtying myself 
more than I liked to do, just before my first sight of my Lady 
Ludlow. But by-and-by, when we came to the fields in 
which the lane ended, I begged Randal to help me down, as 
I saw that I could pick my steps among the pasture grass 
without making myself unfit to be seen ; and Randal, out of 
pity for his steaming horse, wearied with the hard struggle 
through the mud, thanked me kindly, and helped me down 
with a springing jump. 

The pastures fell gradually down to the lower land, shut 
in on either side by rows of high elms, as if there had been 
a wide grand avenue here in former times. Down the grassy 
gorge we went, seeing the sunset sky at the end of the 
shadowed descent. Suddenly we came to a long flight of 
steps. 

“ If you’ll run down there, Miss, I’ll go round and meet 
you ; and then you’d better mount again, for my lady will 
like to see you drive up to the house.” 

“Are we near the house ? ” said I, suddenly checked by 
the idea. 

“ Down there, Miss,” replied he, pointing with his whip 
to certain stacks of twisted chimneys rising out of a group 
of trees, in deep shadow against the crimson light, and 
which lay just beyond a great square lawn at the base of 
the steep slope of a hundred yards, on the edge of which 
we stood. 

I went down the steps quietly enough. I met Randal 
and the gig at the bottom ; and, falling into a side road to 
the left, we drove sedately round, through the gateway, and 
into the great court in front of the house. 

14 


My Lady Ludlow 

The road by which we had come lay right at the back. 

Hanbury Court is a vast red-brick house — at least, it is 
cased in part with red bricks ; and the gate-house and walls 
about the place are of brick — with stone facings at every 
comer, and door, and window, such as you see at Hampton 
Court. At the back are the gables, and arched doorways, 
and stone mullions, which show (so Lady Ludlow used to 
tell us) that it was once a priory. There was a prior’s 
parlour, I know — only we called it Mrs. Medlicott’s room ; 
and there was a tithe-barn as big as a church, and rows of 
fish-ponds, all got ready for the monks’ fasting-days in old 
time. But all this I did not see till afterwards. I hardly 
noticed, this first night, the great Virginian Creeper (said to 
have been the first planted in England by one of my lady’s 
ancestors) that half covered the front of the house. As I 
had been unwilling to leave the guard of the coach, so did 
I now feel unwilling to leave Randal, a known friend of 
three hours. But there was no help for it ; in I must go ; 
past the grand-looking old gentleman holding the door open 
for me, on into the great hall on the right hand, into which 
the sun’s last rays were sending glorious red light — the 
gentleman was now walking before me — up a step on to 
the dais, as I afterwards learned that it was called — then 
again to the left, through a series of sitting-rooms, opening 
one out of another, and all of them looking into a stately 
garden, glowing, even in the twilight, with the bloom of 
flowers. We went up four steps out of the last of these 
rooms, and then my guide lifted up a heavy silk curtain, and 
I was in the presence of my Lady Ludlow. 

She was very small of stature, and very upright. She 
wore a great lace cap, nearly half her own height, I should 
think, that went round her head (caps which tied under the 
chin, and which we called “ mobs,” came in later, and my 
lady held them in great contempt, saying people might as 
well come down in their nightcaps). In front of my lady’s 
cap was a great bow of white satin ribbon ; and a broad 
band of the same ribbon was tied tight round her head, and 

i5 


My Lady Ludlow 

served to keep the cap straight. She had a fine Indian 
muslin shawl folded over her shoulders and across her chest, 
and an apron of the same ; a black silk mode gown, made 
with short sleeves and ruffles, and with the tail thereof 
pulled through the placket-hole, so as to shorten it to a 
useful length : beneath it she wore, as I could plainly see, 
a quilted lavender satin petticoat. Her hair was snowy 
white, but I hardly saw it, it was so covered with her cap : 
her skin, even at her age, was waxen in texture and tint ; 
her eyes were large and dark blue, and must have been her 
great beauty when she was young, for there was nothing 
particular, as far as I can remember, either in mouth or 
nose. She had a great gold-headed stick by her chair ; but 
I think it was more as a mark of state and dignity than for 
use ; for she had as light and brisk a step when she chose 
as any girl of fifteen, and, in her private early walk of 
meditation in the mornings, would go as swiftly from garden 
alley to garden alley as any one of us. 

She was standing up when I went in. I dropped my 
curtsey at the door, which my mother had always taught 
me as a part of good manners, and went up instinctively 
to my lady. She did not put out her hand, but raised 
herself a little on tiptoe, and kissed me on both cheeks. 

“ You are cold, my child. You shall have a dish of tea 
with me.” She rang a little hand-bell on the table by her, 
and her waiting-maid came in from a small anteroom ; and, 
as if all had been prepared, and was awaiting my arrival, 
brought with her a small china service with tea ready made, 
and a plate of delicately-cut bread and butter, every morsel 
of which I could have eaten, and been none the better for it, 
so hungry was I after my long ride. The waiting-maid took 
off my cloak, and I sat down, sorely alarmed at the silence, 
the hushed foot-falls of the subdued maiden over the thick 
carpet, and the soft voice and clear pronunciation of my 
Lady Ludlow. My teaspoon fell against my cup with a 
sharp noise, that seemed so out of place and season that 
I blushed deeply. My lady caught my eye with hers— 

16 


My Lady Ludlow 

both keen and sweet were those dark-blue eyes of her 
ladyship’s — 

“ Your hands are very cold, my dear ; take off those 
gloves " (I wore thick serviceable doeskin, and had been too 
shy to take them off unbidden), “ and let me try and warm 
them — the evenings are very chilly.” And she held my 
great red hands in hers — soft, warm, white, ring-laden. 
Looking at last a little wistfully into my face, she said — 
“ Poor child ! And you’re the eldest of nine ! I had a 
daughter who would have been just your age ; but I cannot 
fancy her the eldest of nine.” Then came a pause of silence ; 
and then she rang her bell, and desired her waiting-maid, 
Adams, to show me to my room. 

It was so small that I think it must have been a cell. 
The walls were whitewashed stone ; the bed was of white 
dimity. There was a small piece of red stair-carpet on each 
side of the bed, and two chairs. In a closet adjoining were 
my washstand and toilet-table. There was a text of Scrip- 
ture painted on the wall right opposite to my bed; and 
below hung a print, common enough in those days, of King 
George and Queen Charlotte, with all their numerous 
children, down to the little Princess Amelia in a go-cart. 
On each side hung a small portrait, also engraved : on the 
left, it was Louis the Sixteenth ; on the other, Marie 
Antoinette. On the chimney-piece there was a tinder-box 
and a Prayer-book. I do not remember anything else in 
the room. Indeed, in those days people did not dream of 
writing-tables, and inkstands, and portfolios, and easy- 
chairs, and what not. We were taught to go into our 
bedrooms for the purposes of dressing, and sleeping, and 
praying. 

Presently I was summoned to supper. I followed the 
young lady who had been sent to call me, down the wide 
shallow stairs, into the great hall, through which I had first 
passed on my way to my Lady Ludlow’s room. There were 
four other young gentlewomen, all standing, and all silent, 
who curtsied to me when I first came in. They were 

17 c 


My Lady Ludlow 

dressed in a kind of uniform : muslin caps bound round 
their heads with blue ribbons, plain musliil handkerchiefs, 
lawn aprons, and drab-coloured stuff gowns. They were all 
gathered together at a little distance from the table, on which 
were placed a couple of cold chickens, a salad, and a fruit 
tart. On the dais there was a smaller round table, on which 
stood a silver jug filled with milk, and a small roll. Near 
that was set a carved chair, with a countess’s coronet 
surmounting the back of it. I thought that some one might 
have spoken to me ; but they were shy, and I was shy ; or 
else there was some other reason ; but, indeed, almost the 
minute after I had come into the hall by the door at the 
lower hand, her ladyship entered by the door opening upon 
the dais ; whereupon we all curtsied very low ; I, because 
I saw the others do it. She stood and looked at us for a 
moment. 

“ Young gentlewomen,” said she, “ make Margaret 
Dawson welcome among you ; ” and they treated me with 
the kind politeness due to a stranger, but still without any 
talking beyond what was required for the purposes of the 
meal. After it was over, and grace was said by one of our 
party, my lady rang her hand-bell, and the servants came 
in and cleared away the supper things ; then they brought 
in a portable reading-desk, which was placed on the dais, 
and, the whole household trooping in, my lady called to one 
of my companions to come up and read the Psalms and 
Lessons for the day. I remember thinking how afraid I 
should have been had I been in her place. There were no 
prayers. My lady thought it schismatic to have any prayers 
excepting those in the Prayer-book ; and would as soon have 
preached a sermon herself in the parish church, as have 
allowed any one not a deacon at the least to read prayers in 
a private dwelling-house. I am not sure that even then she 
would have approved of his reading them in an unconsecrated 
place. 

She had been maid of honour to Queen Charlotte ; a 
Hanbury of that old stock that flourished in the days of the 

18 


My Lady Ludlow f 

Plantagenets, and heiress of all the land that remained to 
the family, of the great estates which had once stretched 
into four separate counties. Hanbury Court was hers by 
right. She had married Lord Ludlow, and had lived for 
many years at his various seats, and away from her ancestral 
home. She had lost all her children but one, and most of 
them had died at these houses of Lord Ludlow’s ; and, I dare 
say, that gave my lady a distaste to the places, and a longing 
to come back to Hanbury Court, where she had been so 
happy as a girl. I imagine her girlhood had been the 
happiest time of her life ; for, now I think of it, most of her 
opinions, when I knew her in later life, were singular enough 
then, but had been universally prevalent fifty years before. 
For instance, while I lived at Hanbury Court, the cry for 
education was beginning to come up : Mr. Eaikes had set 
up his Sunday-schools ; and some clergymen were all for 
teaching writing and arithmetic, as well as reading. My 
lady would have none of this ; it was levelling and revolu- 
tionary, she said. When a young woman came to be hired, 
my lady would have her in, and see if she liked her looks 
and her dress, and question her about her family. Her 
ladyship laid great stress upon this latter point, saying that 
a girl who did not warm up when any interest or curiosity 
was expressed about her mother, or “ the baby ” (if there 
was one), was not likely to make a good servant. Then she 
would make her put out her feet, to see if they were well 
and neatly shod. Then she would bid her say the Lord’s 
Prayer and the Creed. Then she inquired if she could write. 

If she could, and she had liked all that had gone before, her 
face sank — it was a great disappointment, for it was an all 
but inviolable rule with her never to engage a servant who 
could write. But I have known her ladyship break through 
it, although in both cases in which she did so she put the 
girl’s principles to a further and unusual test in asking her 
to repeat the Ten Commandments. One pert young woman 
— and yet I was sorry for her too, only she afterwards 
married a rich draper in Shrewsbury — who had got through 

i9 


k My Lady Ludlow 

her trials pretty tolerably, considering she could write, spoilt 
all, by saying glibly, at the end of the last Commandment, 
“ An’t please your ladyship, I can cast accounts.” 

“ Go away, wench,” said my lady in a hurry, “ you’re 
only fit for trade ; you will not suit me for a servant.” The 
girl went away crestfallen ; in a minute, however, my lady 
sent me after her to see that she had something to eat before 
leaving the house ; and, indeed, she sent for her once again, 
but it was only to give her a Bible, and to bid her beware of 
French principles, which had led the French to cut off their 
king’s and queen’s heads. 

The poor, blubbering girl said, “Indeed, my lady, I 
wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less a king, and I cannot abide the 
French, nor frogs neither, for that matter.” 

But my lady was inexorable, and took a girl who could 
neither read nor write, to make up for her alarm about the 
progress of education towards addition and subtraction ; 
and afterwards, when the clergyman who was at Hanbury 
parish when I came there, had died, and the bishop had 
appointed another, and a younger man, in his stead, this 
was one of the points on which he and my lady did not 
agree. While good old deaf Mr. Mountford lived, it 
was my lady’s custom, when indisposed for a sermon, to 
stand up at the door of her large square pew — just opposite 
the reading-desk — and to say (at that part of the morn- 
ing service where it is decreed that, in choirs and places 
where they sing, here followeth the anthem) : “ Mr. 

Mountford, I will not trouble you for a discourse this 
morning.” And we all knelt down to the Litany with great 
satisfaction ; for Mr. Mountford, though he could not hear, 
had always his eyes open, about this part of the service, for 
any of my lady’s movements. But the new clergyman, Mr. 
Gray, was of a different stamp. He was very zealous in all 
his parish work ; and my lady, who was just as good as she 
could be to the poor, was often crying him up as a godsend 
to the parish, and he never could send amiss to the Court 
when he wanted broth, or wine, or jelly, or sago for a sick 

20 


My Lady Ludlow 

person. But he needs must take up the new hobby of 
education ; and I could see that this put my lady sadly about 
one Sunday, when she suspected, I know not how, that there 
was something to be said in his sermon about a Sunday- 
school which he was planning. She stood up, as she had 
not done since Mr. Mountford’s death, two years and better 
before this time, and said — 

“ Mr. Gray, I will not trouble you for a discourse this 
morning.” 

But her voice was not well-assured and steady ; and we 
knelt down with more of curiosity than satisfaction in our 
minds. Mr. Gray preached a very rousing sermon, on the 
necessity of establishing a Sabbath-school in the village. My 
lady shut her eyes, and seemed to go to sleep ; but I don’t 
believe she lost a word of it, though she said nothing about 
it that I heard until the next Saturday, when two of us, as 
was the custom, were riding out with her in her carriage, 
and we went to see a poor bedridden woman, who lived some 
miles away at the other end of the estate and of the parish ; 
and as we came out of the cottage we met Mr. Gray walking 
up to it, in a great heat, and looking very tired. My lady 
beckoned him to her, and told him she would wait and take 
him home with her, adding that she wondered to see him 
there, so far from his home, for that it was beyond a Sabbath- 
day’s journey, and, from what she had gathered from his 
sermon the last Sunday, he was all for Judaism against 
Christianity. He looked as if he did not understand what 
she meant ; but the truth was that, besides the way in 
which he had spoken up for schools and schooling, he had 
kept calling Sunday the Sabbath ; and, as her ladyship 
said, “ The Sabbath is the Sabbath, and that’s one thing --it 
is Saturday; and, if I keep it, I’m a Jew, which I’m not. 
And Sunday is Sunday ; and that’s another thing ; and, if I 
keep it, I’m a Christian, which I humbly trust I am.” 

But, when Mr. Gray got an inkling of her meaning in 
talking about a Sabbath-day’s journey, he only took notice 
of a part of it ; he smiled and bowed, and said no one knew 

21 


My Lady Ludlow 

better than her ladyship what were the duties that abrogated 
all inferior laws regarding the Sabbath ; and that he must go 
in and read to old Betty Brown, so that he would not detain 
her ladyship. 

“ But I shall wait for you, Mr. Gray,” said she. “ Or I 
will take a drive round by Oakfield, and be back in an hour’s 
time.” For, you see, she would not have him feel hurried 
or troubled with a thought that he was keeping her waiting, 
while he ought to be comforting and praying with old Betty. 

“ A very pretty young man, my dears,” said she, as we 
drove away. “ But I shall have my pew glazed all the 
same.” 

We did not know what she meant at the time ; but the 
next Suhday but one we did. She had the curtains all 
round the grand old Hanbury family pew taken down, and, 
instead of them, there was glass up to the height of six 
or seven feet. We entered by a door, with a window in it 
that drew up or down just like what you see in carriages. 
This window was generally down, and then we could hear 
perfectly ; but if Mr. Gray used the word “ Sabbath,” or 
spoke in favour of schooling or education, my lady stepped 
out of her corner, and drew up the window with a decided 
clang and clash. 

I must tell you something more about Mr. Gray. The 
presentation to the living of Hanbury was vested in two 
trustees, of whom Lady Ludlow was one : Lord Ludlow 
had exercised this right in the appointment of Mr. Mount- 
ford, who had won his lordship’s favour by his excellent 
horsemanship. Nor was Mr. Mountford a bad clergyman; 
as clergymen went in those days. He did not drink, though 
he liked good eating as much as any one. And if any poor 
person was ill, and he heard of it, he would send them plates 
from his own dinner of what he himself liked best ; sometimes 
of dishes which were almost as bad as poison to sick people, 
He meant kindly to everybody except dissenters, whom Lady 
Ludlow and he united in trying to drive out of the parish ; 
and among dissenters he particularly abhorred Methodists — 


22 


My Lady Ludlow 

some one said, because John Wesley had objected to his 
hunting. But that must have been long ago, for when I 
knew him he was far too stout and too heavy to hunt; 
besides, the bishop of the diocese disapproved of hunting, 
and had intimated his disapprobation to the clergy. For my 
own part, I think a good run would not have come amiss, 
even from a moral point of view, to Mr. Mountford. He ate so 
much, and took so little exercise, that we young women often 
heard of his being in terrible passions with his servants, and 
the sexton and clerk. But they none of them minded him 
much, for he soon came to himself, and was sure to make 
them some present or other — some said in proportion to his 
anger ; so that the sexton, who was a bit of a wag (as all 
sextons are, I think), said that the vicar’s saying, “ The Devil 
take you,” was worth a shilling any day, whereas “ The 
Deuce ” was a shabby sixpenny speech, only fit for a 
curate. 

There was a great deal of good in Mr. Mountford, too. 
He could not bear to see pain, or sorrow, or misery of any 
kind ; and, if it came under his notice, he was never easy till 
he had relieved it, for the time, at any rate. But he was 
afraid of being made uncomfortable ; so, if he possibly could, 
he would avoid seeing any one who was ill or unhappy ; and 
he did not thank any one for telling him about them. 

“ What would your ladyship have me to do ? ” he once 
said to my Lady Ludlow, when she wished him to go and see 
a poor man who had broken his leg. “ I cannot piece the leg 
as the doctor can ; I cannot nurse him as well as his wife 
does ; I may talk to him, but he no more understands me 
than I do the language of the alchemists. My coming puts 
him out ; he stiffens himself into an uncomfortable posture, 
out of respect to the cloth, and dare not take the comfort of 
kicking, and swearing, and scolding his wife, while I am 
there. I hear him, with my figurative ears, my lady, heave 
a sigh of relief when my back is turned, and the sermon that 
he thinks I ought to have kept for the pulpit, and have 
delivered to his neighbours (whose case, as he fancies, it 

2 3 


My Lady Ludlow 

would just have fitted, as it seemed to him to be addressed 
to the sinful) is all ended, and done, for the day. I judge 
others as myself ; I do to them as I would be done to. That’s 
Christianity, at any rate. I should hate — saving your lady- 
ship’s presence — to have my Lord Ludlow coming and seeing 
me, if I were ill. ’Twould be a great honour, no doubt ; but 
I should have to put on a clean nightcap for the occasion, 
and sham patience, in order to be polite, and not weary 
his lordship with my complaints. I should be twice as 
thankful to him if he would send me game, or a good fat 
haunch, to bring me up to that pitch of health and strength 
one ought to be in, to appreciate the honour of a visit from a 
nobleman. So I shall send Jerry Butler a good dinner every 
day till he is strong again ; and spare the poor old fellow my 
presence and advice/* 

My lady would be puzzled by this, and by many other 
of Mr. Mountford’s speeches. But he had been appointed 
by my lord, and she could not question her dead husband’s 
wisdom ; and she knew that the dinners were always sent, 
and often a guinea or two to help to pay the doctor’s bills ; 
and Mr. Mountford was true blue, as we call it, to the back- 
bone ; hated the dissenters and the French ; and could hardly 
drink a dish of tea without giving out the toast of “ Church 
and King, and down with the Bump.” Moreover, he had 
once had the honour of preaching before the King and Queen, 
and two of the Princesses, at Weymouth ; and the King had 
applauded his sermon audibly with — “ Very good ; very 
good ; ” and that was a seal put upon his merit in my 
lady’s eyes. 

Besides, in the long winter Sunday evenings, he would 
come up to the Court, and read a sermon to us girls, and 
play a game of picquet with my lady afterwards; which 
served to shorten the tedium of the time. My lady would, 
on those occasions, invite him to sup with her on the dais ; 
but, as her meal was invariably bread and milk only, Mr. 
Mountford preferred sitting down amongst us, and made 
a joke about its being wicked and heterodox to eat meagre 

24 


My Lady Ludlow 

on Sunday, a festival of the Church. We smiled at this 
joke just as much the twentieth time we heard it as we 
did at the first; for we knew it was coming, because he 
always coughed a little nervously before he made a joke, 
for fear my lady should not approve; and neither she nor 
he seemed to remember that he had ever hit upon the idea 
before. 

Mr. Mountford died quite suddenly at last. We were all 
very sorry to lose him. He left some of his property (for 
he had a private estate) to the poor of the parish, to furnish 
them with an annual Christmas dinner of roast beef and 
plum-pudding, for which he wrote out a very good receipt 
in the codicil to his will. 

Moreover, he desired his executors to see that the vault 
in which the vicars of Hanbury were interred was well 
aired, before his coffin was taken in ; for, all his life long, 
he had had a dread of damp, and latterly he kept his rooms 
to such a pitch of warmth that some thought it hastened 
his end. 

Then the other trustee, as I have said, presented the 
living to Mr. Gray, Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. It 
was quite natural for us all, as belonging in some sort to 
the Hanbury family, to disapprove of the other trustee’s 
choice. But when some ill-natured person circulated the 
report that Mr. Gray was a Moravian Methodist, I remember 
my lady said, “ She could not believe anything so bad, 
without a great deal of evidence.” 


CHAPTER II 

Befobe I tell you about Mr. Gray, I think I ought to make 
you understand something more of what we did all day 
long at Hanbury Court. There were five of us at the time 
of which I am speaking, all young women of good descent, 

25 


My Lady Ludlow 

and allied (however distantly) to people of rank. When we 
were not with my lady, Mrs. Medlicott looked after us : a 
gentle little woman, who had been companion to my lady 
for many years, and was indeed, I have been told, some 
kind of relation to her. Mrs. Medlicott’s parents had lived 
in Germany, and the consequence was, she spoke English 
with a very foreign accent. Another consequence was, that 
she excelled in all manner of needlework, such as is not 
known even by name in these days. She could darn either 
lace, table-linen, India muslin, or stockings, so that no one 
could tell where the hole or rent had been. Though a good 
Protestant, and never missing Guy Faux day at church, she 
was as skilful at fine work as any nun in a Papist convent. 
She would take a piece of French cambric, and by drawing 
out some threads, and working in others, it became delicate 
lace in a very few hours. She did the same by Hollands 
cloth, and made coarse strong lace, with which all my lady’s 
napkins and table-linen were trimmed. We worked under 
her during a great part of the day, either in the still-room, 
or at our sewing in a chamber that opened out of the great 
hall. My lady despised every kind of work that would now 
be called Fancy-work. She considered that the use of 
coloured threads or worsted was only fit to amuse children ; 
but that grown women ought not to be taken with mere 
blues and reds, but to restrict their pleasure in sewing to 
making small and delicate stitches. She would speak of 
the old tapestry in the hall as the work of her ancestresses, 
who lived before the Beformation, and were consequently 
unacquainted with pure and simple tastes in work, as well 
as in religion. Nor would my lady sanction the fashion of 
the day, which, at the beginning of this century, made all 
the fine ladies take to making shoes. She said that such 
work was a consequence of the French Bevolution, which 
had done much to annihilate all distinctions of rank and 
class, and hence it was that she saw young ladies of birth 
and breeding handling lasts, and awls, and dirty cobblers’ - 
wax, like shoe-makers’ daughters. 

26 


My Lady Ludlow 

Very frequently one of us would be summoned to my 
lady to read aloud to her, as she sat in her small withdra wing- 
room, some improving book; It was generally Mr. Addison’s 
“ Spectator ; ” but one year, I remember, we had to read 
“ Sturm’s Reflections,” translated from a German book Mrs. 
Medlicott recommended. Mr. Sturm told us what to think 
about for every day in the year ; and very dull it was ; but 
I believe Queen Charlotte had liked the book very much, 
and the thought of her royal approbation kept my lady 
awake during the reading. “ Mrs. Chapone’s Letters ” and 
“ Dr. Gregory’s Advice to Young Ladies ” composed the 
rest of our library for week-day reading. I, for one, was 
glad to leave my fine sewing, and even my reading aloud 
(though this last did keep me with my dear lady) to go to 
the still-room and potter about among the preserves and the 
medicated waters. There was no doctor for many miles 
round, and with Mrs. Medlicott to direct us, and Dr. Buchan 
to go by for recipes, we sent out many a bottle of physic, 
which, I dare say, was as good as what comes out of the 
druggist’s shop. At any rate, I do not think we did much 
harm ; for, if any of our physics tasted stronger than usual, 
Mrs. Medlicott would bid us let it down with cochineal and 
water, to make all safe as she said. So our bottles of 
medicine had very little real physic in them at last ; but we 
were careful in putting labels on them, which looked very 
mysterious to those who could not read, and helped the 
medicine to do its work. I have sent off many a bottle of 
salt and water coloured red ; and, whenever we had nothing 
else to do in the still-room, Mrs. Medlicott would set us to 
making bread-pills, by way of practice ; and, as far as I can 
say, they were very efficacious, as before we gave out a box 
Mrs. Medlicott always told the patient what symptoms to 
expect ; and I hardly ever inquired without hearing that they 
had produced their effect. There was one old man who 
took six pills a-night, of any kind we liked to give him, to 
make him sleep; and if, by any chance, his daughter had 
forgotten to let us know that he was out of his medicine, 

27 


My Lady Ludlow 

he was so restless and miserable that, as he said, he thought 
he was like to die. I think ours was what would be called 
homoeopathic practice now-a-days. Then we learnt to make 
all the cakes and dishes of the season in the still-room. 
We had plum-porridge and mince-pies at Christmas, fritters 
and pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, furmenty on Mothering 
Sunday, violet-cakes in Passion Week, tansy-pudding on 
Easter Sunday, three-cornered cakes on Trinity Sunday, and 
so on through the year : all made from good old Church re- 
ceipts, handed down from one of my lady’s earliest Protestant 
ancestresses. Every one of us passed a portion of the day 
with Lady Ludlow ; and now and then we rode out with her 
in her coach and four. She did not like to go out with a 
pair of horses, considering this rather beneath her rank ; 
and, indeed, four horses were very often needed to pull 
her heavy coach through the stiff mud. But it was rather 
a cumbersome equipage through the narrow Warwickshire 
lanes ; and I used often to think it was well that countesses 
were not plentiful, or else we might have met another lady 
of quality in another coach and four, where there would 
have been no possibility of turning, or passing each other, 
and very little chance of backing. Once, when the idea of 
this danger of meeting another countess in a narrow, deep- 
rutted lane was very prominent in my mind, I ventured to 
ask Mrs. Medlicott what would have to be done on such 
an occasion ; and she told me that “ de latest creation must 
back, for sure,” which puzzled me a good deal at the time, 
although I understand it now. I began to find out the use 
of the “ Peerage,” a book which had seemed to me rather 
dull before; but, as I was always a coward in a coach, 
I made myself well acquainted with the dates of creation 
of our three Warwickshire earls, and was happy to find 
that Earl Ludlow ranked second, the oldest earl being a 
hunting widower, and not likely to drive out in a carriage. 

All this time I have wandered from Mr. Gray. Of course, 
we first saw him in church when he read himself in. He 
was very red-faced, the kind of redness which goes with 

28 


My Lady Ludlow 

light hair and a blushing complexion ; he looked slight and 
short, and his bright light frizzy hair had hardly a dash of 
powder in it. I remember my lady making this observation, 
and sighing over it ; for, though since the famine in seventeen 
hundred and ninety-nine and eighteen hundred there had 
been a tax on hair-powder, yet it was reckoned very revolu- 
tionary and Jacobin not to wear a good deal of it. My lady 
hardly liked the opinions of any man who wore his own 
hair ; but this she would say was rather a prejudice ; only, 
in her youth none but the mob had gone wigless, and she 
could not get over the association of wigs with birth and 
breeding ; a man’s own hair with that class of people who 
had formed the rioters in seventeen hundred and eighty, 
when Lord George Gordon had been one of the bugbears 
of my lady’s life. Her husband and his brothers, she told 
us, had been put into breeches, and had their heads shaved 
on their seventh birthday, each of them, a handsome little 
wig of the newest fashion forming the old Lady Ludlow’s 
invariable birthday present to her sons as they each arrived 
at that age ; and afterwards, to the day of their death, they 
never saw their own hair. To be without powder, as some 
underbred people were talking of being now, was in fact 
to insult the proprieties of life by being undressed. It was 
English sans-culottism. But Mr. Gray did wear a little 
powder — enough to save him in my lady’s good opinion, but 
not enough to make her approve of him decidedly. 

The next time I saw him was in the great hall. Mary 
Mason and I were going to drive out with my lady in her 
coach ; and, when we went downstairs with our best hats and 
cloaks on, we found Mr. Gray awaiting my lady’s coming. 
I believe he had paid his respects to her before, but we had 
never seen him ; and he had declined her invitation to spend 
Sunday evening at the Court (as Mr. Mountford used to do 
pretty regularly — and play a game at picquet too), which, 
Mrs. Medlicott told us, had caused my lady to be not over 
well pleased with him. 

He blushed redder than ever at the sight of us, as we 

29 


My Lady Ludlow 

entered the hall and dropped him our curtsies. He coughed 
two or three times, as if he would have liked to speak to us, 
if he could but have found something to say; and every 
time he coughed he became hotter-looking than ever. I am 
ashamed to say, we were nearly laughing at him; half 
because we, too, were so shy that we understood what his 
awkwardness meant. 

My lady came in, with her quick active step — she always 
walked quickly when she did not bethink herself of her 
cane — as if she was sorry to have us kept waiting — and, as 
she entered, she gave us all round one of those graceful 
sweeping curtsies, of which I think the art must have died 
out with her, it implied so much courtesy; — this time it 
said, as well as words could do, “I am sorry to have kept 
you all waiting — forgive me.” 

She went up to the mantelpiece, near which Mr. Gray 
had been standing until her entrance, curtseying afresh 
to him, and pretty deeply this time, because of his cloth, 
and her being hostess, and he, a new guest. She asked him 
if he would not prefer speaking to her in her own private 
parlour, and looked as though she would have conducted 
him there. But he burst out with his errand, of which he 
was full even to choking, and which sent the glistening tears 
into his large blue eyes, which stood farther and farther out 
with his excitement. 

“ My lady, I want to speak to you, and to persuade 
you to exert your kind interest with Mr. Lathom — Justice 
Lathom, of Hathaway Manor ” 

“ Harry Lathom ? ” inquired my lady, — as Mr. Gray 
stopped to take the breath he had lost in his hurry — “ I did 
not know he was in the commission.” 

“ He is only just appointed ; he took the oaths not a 
month ago — more’s the pity ! ” 

“I do not understand why you should regret it. The 
Lathoms have held Hathaway since Edward the First, and 
Mr. Lathom bears a good character, although his temper is 
hasty ” 


3 ° 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ My lady ! he has committed Job Gregson for stealing — 
a fault of which he is as innocent as I — and all the evidence 
goes to prove it, now that the case is brought before the 
Bench ; only the Squires hang so together that they can’t 
be brought to see justice, and are all for sending Job to 
gaol, out of compliment to Mr. Lathom, saying it is his 
first committal, and it won’t be civil to tell him there is no 
evidence against his man. For God’s sake, my lady, speak 
to the gentlemen ; they will attend to you, while they only 
tell me to mind my own business.” 

Now my lady was always inclined to stand by her order, 
and the Lathoms of Hathaway Court were cousins to the 
Hanburys. Besides, it was rather a point of honour in those 
days to encourage a young magistrate, by passing a pretty 
sharp sentence on his first committals ; and Job Gregson 
was the father of a girl who had been lately turned away 
from her place as scullery-maid for sauciness to Mrs. Adams, 
her ladyship’s own maid ; and Mr. Gray had not said a word 
of the reasons why he believed the man innocent — for he 
was in such a hurry, I believe he would have had my lady 
drive off to the Henley Court-house then and there ; — so 
there seemed a good deal against the man, and nothing but 
Mr. Gray’s bare word for him ; and my lady drew herself a 
little up, and said — 

“ Mr. Gray ! I do not see what reason either you or I 
have to interfere. Mr. Harry Lathom is a sensible kind of 
young man, well capable of ascertaining the truth without 
our help ” 

“ But more evidence has come out since,” broke in Mr. 
Gray. My lady went a little stiffer, and spoke a little more 
coldly — 

“ I suppose this additional evidence is before the justices : 
men of good family, and of honour and credit, well known 
in the county. They naturally feel that the opinion of one 
of themselves must have more weight than the words of a 
man like Job Gregson, who bears a very indifferent character 
— has been strongly suspected of poaching, coming from no 

3i 


My Lady Ludlow 

one knows where, squatting on Hareman’s Common — which, 
by the way, is extra-parochial, I believe ; consequently you; 
as a clergyman, are not responsible for what goes on there ; 
and, although impolitic, there might be some truth in what 
the magistrates said, in advising you to mind your own 
business,” said her ladyship, smiling, “ and they might be 
tempted to bid me mind mine, if I interfered, Mr. Gray : 
might they not ? ” 

He looked extremely uncomfortable ; half angry. Once 
or twice he began to speak, but checked himself, as if his 
words would not have been wise or prudent. At last he 
said — 

“ It may seem presumptuous in me — a stranger of only 
a few weeks' standing — to set up my judgment as to men’s 
character against that of residents” — Lady Ludlow gave a 
little bow of acquiescence, which was, I think, involuntary 
on her part, and which I don’t think he perceived — “ but I 
am convinced that the man is innocent of this offence — and 
besides, the justices themselves allege this ridiculous custom 
of paying a compliment to a newly-appointed magistrate as 
their only reason.” 

That unlucky word “ ridiculous ! ” It undid all the good 
his modest beginning had done him with my lady. I knew 
as well as words could have told me, that she was affronted 
at the expression being used by a man inferior in rank 
to those whose actions he applied it to — and, truly, it 
was a great want of tact, considering to whom he was 
speaking. 

Lady Ludlow spoke very gently and slowly ; she always 
did so when she was annoyed ; it was a certain sign, the 
meaning of which we had all learnt. 

“ I think, Mr. Gray, we will drop the subject. It is one 
on which we are not likely to agree.” 

Mr. Gray’s ruddy colour grew purple and then faded 
away, and his face became pale. I think both my lady and 
he had forgotten our presence; and we were beginning to 
feel too awkward to wish to remind them of it. And yet 

32 


My Lady Ludlow 

we could not help watching and listening with the greatest 
interest. 

Mr. Gray drew himself up to his full height, with an 
unconscious feeling of dignity. Little as was his stature, 
and awkward and embarrassed as he had been only a few 
minutes before, I remember thinking he looked almost as 
grand as my lady when he spoke. 

Your ladyship must remember that it may be my duty 
to speak to my parishioners on many subjects on which 
they do not agree with me. I am not at liberty to be silent, 
because they differ in opinion from me.” 

Lady Ludlow’s great blue eyes dilated with surprise, and 
— I do think — anger, at being thus spoken to. I am not 
sure whether it was very wise in Mr. Gray. He himself 
looked afraid of the consequences, but as if he was deter- 
mined to bear them without flinching. For a minute there 
was silence. Then my lady replied — 

“ Mr. Gray, I respect your plain speaking, although I 
may Wonder whether a young man of your age and position 
has any right to assume that he is a better judge than one 
with the experience which I have naturally gained at my 
time of life, and in the station I hold.” 

“ If I, madam, as the clergyman of this parish, am not 
to shrink from telling what I believe to be the truth to the 
poor and lowly, no more am I to hold my peace in the 
presence of the rich and titled.” Mr. Gray’s face showed 
that he was in that state of excitement which in a child 
would have ended in a good fit of crying. He looked as if 
he had nerved himself up to doing and saying things, which 
he disliked above everything, and which nothing short of 
serious duty could have compelled him to do and say. And 
at such times every minute circumstance which could add to 
pain comes vividly before one. I saw that he became aware 
of our presence, and that it added to his discomfiture. 

My lady flushed up. “Are you aware, sir,” asked she, 

“ that you have gone far astray from the original subject of 
conversation ? But, as you talk of your parish, allow me to 


My Lady Ludlow 

remind you that Hareman’s Common is beyond the bounds, 
and that you are really not responsible for the characters 
and lives of the squatters on that unlucky piece of ground.” 

“ Madam, I see I have only done harm in speaking to 
you about the affair at all. I beg your pardon and take my 
leave.” 

He bowed, and looked very sad. Lady Ludlow caught 
the expression of his face. 

“ Good morning ! ” she cried, in rather a louder and 
quicker way than that in which she had been speaking. 
“ Remember, Job Gregson is a notorious poacher and evil- 
doer, and you really are not responsible for what goes on at 
Hareman’s Common.” 

He was near the hall-door, and said something — half to 
himself, which we heard (being nearer to him), but my lady 
did not ; although she saw that he spoke. “ What did he 
say ? ” she asked in a somewhat hurried manner, as soon as 
the door was closed — “ I did not hear.” We looked at each 
other, and then I spoke — 

“ He said, my lady, that ‘ God help him ! he was respon- 
sible for all the evil he did not strive to overcome.’ ” 

My lady turned sharp round away from us, and Mary 
Mason said afterwards she thought her ladyship was much 
vexed with both of us for having been present, and with me 
for having repeated what Mr. Gray had said. But it was 
not our fault that we were in the hall ; and, when my lady 
asked what Mr. Gray had said, I thought it right to tell 
her. 

In a few minutes she bade us accompany her in her ride 
in the coach. 

Lady Ludlow always sat forwards by herself, and we 
girls backwards. Somehow this was a rule, which we never 
thought of questioning. It was true that riding backwards 
made some of us feel very uncomfortable and faint ; and to 
remedy this my lady always drove with both windows open, 
which occasionally gave her the rheumatism ; but we always 
went on in the old way. This day she did not pay any 

34 


My Lady Ludlow 

great attention to the road by which we were going, and 
Coachman took his own way. We were very silent, as my 
lady did not speak, and looked very serious. Or else, in 
general, she made these rides very pleasant (to those who 
were not qualmish with riding backwards), by talking to us 
in a very agreeable manner, and telling us of the different 
things which had happened to her at various places — at Paris 
and Versailles, where she had been in her youth — at 
Windsor and Kew and Weymouth, where she had been with 
the Queen, when maid-of-honour — and so on. But this day 
she did not talk at all. All at once she put her head out of 
the window. 

“John Footman,” said she, “where are we? Surely 
this is Hareman’s Common.” 

“ Yes, an’t please my lady,” said John Footman, and 
waited for further speech or orders. My lady thought a 
while, and then said she would have the steps put down and 
get out. 

As soon as she was gone, we looked at each other, and 
then without a word began to gaze after her. We saw her 
pick her dainty way, in the little high-heeled shoes she 
always wore (because they had been in fashion in her youth), 
among the yellow pools of stagnant water that had gathered 
in the clayey soil. John Footman followed, stately, after; 
afraid too, for all his stateliness, of splashing his pure white 
stockings. Suddenly my lady turned round and said some- 
thing to him, and he returned to the carriage with a half- 
pleased, half-puzzled air. 

My lady went on to a cluster of rude mud houses at the 
higher end of the Common : cottages built, as they were 
occasionally at that day, of wattles and clay, and thatched 
with sods. As far as we could make out from dumb show, 
Lady Ludlow saw enough of the interiors of these places to 
make her hesitate before entering, or even speaking to any 
of the children who were playing about in the puddles. 
After a pause, she disappeared into one of the cottages. It 
seemed to us a long time before she came out ; but I dare 

35 


My Lady Ludlow 

say it was not more than eight or ten minutes. She came 
back with her head hanging down, as if to choose her way 
— but we saw it was more in thought and bewilderment 
than for any such purpose. 

She had not made up her mind where we should drive to 
when she got into the carriage again. John Footman stood, 
bare-headed, waiting for orders. 

“To Hathaway. My dears, if you are tired, or if you 
have anything to do for Mrs. Medlicott, I can drop you at 
Barford Corner, and it is but a quarter of an hour’s brisk 
walk home.” 

But luckily we could safely say that Mrs. Medlicott did 
not want us ; and as we had whispered to each other, as we 
sat alone in the coach, that surely my lady must have gone 
to Job Gregson’s, we were far too anxious to know the end 
of it all to say that we were tired. So we all set off to 
Hathaway. Mr. Harry Lathom was a bachelor squire, 
thirty or thirty-five years of age, more at home in the field 
than in the drawing-room, and with sporting men than with 
ladies. 

My lady did not alight, of course ; it was Mr. Lathom’s 
place to wait upon her, and she bade the butler — who had a 
smack of the gamekeeper in him, very unlike our own 
powdered venerable fine gentleman at Hanbury — tell his 
master, with her compliments, that she wished to speak to 
him. You may think how pleased we were to find that we 
should hear all that was said ; though, I think, afterwards we 
were half sorry when we saw how our presence confused the 
squire, who would have found it bad enough to answer my 
lady’s questions, even without two eager girls for audience. 

“ Pray, Mr. Lathom,” began my lady, something abruptly 
for her — but she was very full of her subject — “what is 
this I hear about Job Gregson ? ” 

Mr. Lathom looked annoyed and vexed, but dared not 
show it in his words. 

“ I gave out a warrant against him, my lady, for theft — 
that is all. You are doubtless aware of his character: a 

3 6 


My Lady Ludlow 

man who sets nets and springes in long cover, and fishes 
wherever he takes a fancy. It is but a short step from 
poaching to thieving.” 

“ That is quite true,” replied Lady Ludlow (who had a 
horror of poaching for this very reason) : “ but I imagine 
you do not send a man to gaol on account of his bad 
character.” 

“ Rogues and vagabonds,” said Mr. Lathom. “ A man 
may be sent to prison for being a vagabond ; for no specific 
act, but for his general mode of life.” 

He had the better of her ladyship for one moment ; but 
then she answered — 

“ But in this case, the charge on which you committed 
him is for theft ; now his wife tells me he can prove he was 
some miles distant from Holmwood, where the robbery took 
place, all that afternoon; she says you had the evidence 
before you.” 

Mr. Lathom here interrupted my lady, by saying, in a 
somewhat sulky manner — 

“No such evidence was brought before me when I gave 
the warrant. I am not answerable for the other magistrates’ 
decision when they had more evidence before them. It was 
they who committed him to gaol. I am not responsible for 
that.” 

My lady did not often show signs of impatience ; but we 
knew she was feeling irritated, by the little perpetual tapping 
of her high-heeled shoe against the bottom of the carriage. 
About the same time we, sitting backwards, caught a 
glimpse of Mr. Gray through the open door, standing in the 
shadow of the hall. Doubtless Lady Ludlow’s arrival had 
interrupted a conversation between Mr. Lathom and Mr. 
Gray. The latter must have heard every word of what she 
was saying ; but of this she was not aware, and caught at 
Mr. Lathom’s disclaimer of responsibility with pretty much 
the same argument which she had heard (through our 
repetition) that Mr. Gray had used not two hours before. 

“ And do you mean to say, Mr. Lathom, that you don’t 
37 


My Lady Ludlow 

consider yourself responsible for all injustice or wrong-doing 
that you might have prevented, and have not ? Nay, in this 
case the first germ of injustice was your own mistake. I 
wish you had been with me a little while ago, and seen the 
misery in that poor fellow’s cottage.” She spoke lower, and 
Mr. Gray drew near, in a sort of involuntary manner, as if 
to hear all she was saying. We saw him, and doubtless Mr. 
Lathom heard his footstep, and knew who it was that was 
listening behind him, and approving of every word that was 
said. He grew yet more sullen in manner ; but still my lady 
was my lady, and he dared not speak out before her, as he 
would have done to Mr. Gray. Lady Ludlow, however, 
caught the look of stubbornness in his face, and it roused her 
as I had never seen her roused. 

“ I am sure you will not refuse, sir, to accept my bail. 
I offer to bail the fellow out, and to be responsible for his 
appearance at the sessions. What say you to that, Mr. 
Lathom ? M 

“ The offence of theft is not bailable, my lady.” 

“Not in ordinary cases, I dare say. But I imagine this 
is an extraordinary case. The man is sent to prison out of 
compliment to you, and against all evidence, as far as I can 
learn. He will have to rot in gaol for two months, and his 
wife and children to starve. I, Lady Ludlow, offer to bail 
him out, and pledge myself for his appearance at next 
quarter-sessions. ” 

“ It is against the law, my lady.” 

“ Bah ! Bah ! Bah ! Who makes laws ? Such as I, in 
the House of Lords — such as you, in the House of Commons. 
We, who make the laws in St. Stephen’s, may break the 
mere forms of them, when we have right on our sides, on our 
own land, and amongst our own people.” 

“ The lord-lieutenant may take away my commission, if 
he heard of it.” 

“ And a very good thing for the county, Harry Lathom, 
and for you too, if he did — if you don’t go on more wisely 
than you have begun. A pretty set you and your brother 

38 


My Lady Ludlow 

magistrates are to administer justice through the land! I 
always said a good despotism was the best form of govern- 
ment ; and I am twice as much in favour of it now I see 
what a quorum is ! My dears ! ” suddenly turning round to 
us, “ if it would not tire you to walk home, I would beg Mr. 
Lathom to take a seat in my coach, and we would drive to 
Henley Gaol, and have the poor man out at once.” 

“ A walk over the fields at this time of day is hardly 
fitting for young ladies to take alone,” said Mr. Lathom, 
anxious no doubt to escape from his tete-a-tete drive with my 
lady, and possibly not quite prepared to go to the illegal 
length of prompt measures, which she had in contemplation. 

But Mr. Gray now stepped forward, too anxious for the 
release of the prisoner to allow any obstacle to intervene 
which he could do away with. To see Lady Ludlow’s face 
when she first perceived whom she had had for auditor and 
spectator of her interview with Mr. Lathom, was as good as 
a play. She had been doing and saying the very things she 
had been so much annoyed at Mr. Gray’s saying and pro- 
posing only an hour or two ago. She had been setting down 
Mr. Lathom pretty smartly, in the presence of the very man 
to whom she had spoken of that gentleman as so sensible, 
and of such a standing in the county, that it was presump- 
tion to question his doings. But before Mr. Gray had 
finished his offer of escorting us back to Hanbury Court, my 
lady had recovered herself. There was neither surprise nor 
displeasure in her manner, as she answered — 

“ I thank you, Mr. Gray. I was not aware that you were 
here, but I think I can understand on what errand you came. 
And seeing you here recalls me t© a duty I owe Mr. Lathom. 
Mr. Lathom, I have spoken to you pretty plainly — forgetting, 
until I saw Mr. Gray, that only this very afternoon I differed 
from him on this very question ; taking completely, at that 
time, the same view of the whole subject which you have 
done ; thinking that the county would be well rid of such a 
man as Job Gregson, whether he had committed this theft or 
not. Mr. Gray and I did not part quite friends,” she continued, 

39 


My Lady Ludlow 

bowing towards him; “but it so happened that I saw Job 
Gregson’s wife and home — I felt that Mr. Gray had been 
right and I had been wrong ; so, with the famous inconsist- 
ency of my sex, I came hither to scold you,” smiling towards 
Mr. Lathom, who looked half -sulky yet, and did not relax a 
bit of his gravity at her smile, “ for holding the same opinions 
that I had done an hour before. Mr. Gray,” (again bowing 
towards him) “ these young ladies will be very much obliged 
to you for your escort, and so shall I. Mr. Lathom, may I 
beg of you to accompany me to Henley ? ” 

Mr. Gray bowed very low, and went very red; Mr. 
Lathom said something which we none of us heard, but 
which was, I think, some remonstrance against the course he 
was, as it were, compelled to take. Lady Ludlow, however, 
took no notice of his murmur, but sat in an attitude of polite 
expectancy ; and, as we turned off on our walk, I saw Mr. 
Lathom getting into the coach with the air of a whipped 
hound. I must say, considering my lady’s feeling, I did not 
envy him his ride — though, I believe, he was quite in the 
right .as to the object of the ride being illegal. 

Our walk home was very dull. We had no fears ; and 
would far rather have been without the awkward, blushing 
young man, into which Mr. Gray had sunk. At every stile 
he hesitated — sometimes he half got over it, thinking that he 
could assist us better in that way ; then he would turn back, 
unwilling to go before ladies. He had no ease of manner, as 
my lady once said of him, though on any occasion of duty, 
he had an immense deal of dignity. 


CHAPTER III 

As far as I can remember, it was very soon after this that I 
first began to have the pain in my hip which has ended in 
making me a cripple for life. I hardly recollect more than 

40 


My Lady Ludlow 

one walk after our return under Mr. Gray’s escort from Mr. 
Lathom’s. Indeed, at the time, I was not without suspicions 
(which I never named) that the beginning of all the mischief 
was a great jump I had taken from the top of one of the 
stiles on that very occasion. 

Well, it is a long while ago, and God disposes of us all, 
and I am not going to tire you out with telling you how I 
thought and felt, and how, when I saw what my life was to 
be, I could hardly bring myself to be patient, but rather 
wished to die at once. You can every one of you think for 
yourselves what becoming all at once useless and unable to 
move, and by-and-by growing hopeless of cure, and feeling 
that one must be a burden to some one all one’s life long, 
would be to an active, wilful, strong girl of seventeen, 
anxious to get on in the world, so as, if possible, to help her 
brothers and sisters. So I shall only say, that one among 
the blessings which arose out of what seemed at the time a 
great, black sorrow was, that Lady Ludlow for many years 
took me, as it were, into her own especial charge ; and now, 
as I lie still and alone in my old age, it is such a pleasure to 
think of her ! 

Mrs. Medlicott was great as a nurse, and I am sure I 
can never be grateful enough to her memory for all her 
kindness. But she was puzzled to know how to manage me 
in other ways. I used to have long, hard fits of crying; 
thinking that I ought to go home — and yet what could they 
do with me there ? — and a hundred and fifty other anxious 
thoughts, some of which I could tell to Mrs. Medlicott, and 
others I could not. Her way of comforting me was hurrying 
off for some kind of tempting or strengthening food — a 
basin of melted calves’-foot jelly was, I am sure she thought, 
a cure for every woe. 

“ There ! take it, dear, take it ! ” she would say ; “ and 
don’t go on fretting for what can’t be helped.’* 

But, I think, she got puzzled at length at the non-efficacy 
of good things to eat ; and one day, after I had limped down 
to see the doctor, in Mrs. Medlicott’s sitting-room — a room 


My Lady Ludlow 

lined with cupboards, containing preserves and dainties of 
all kinds, which she perpetually made, and never touched 
herself — when I was returning to my bedroom to cry away 
the afternoon, under pretence of arranging my clothes, John 
Footman brought me a message from my lady (with whom 
the doctor had been having a conversation), to bid me go to 
her in that private sitting-room at the end of the suite of 
apartments about which I spoke in describing the day of my 
first arrival at Hanbury. I had hardly been in it since ; as, 
when we read to my lady, she generally sat in the small 
withdrawing-room out of which this private room of hers 
opened. I suppose great people do not require what we 
smaller people value so much — I mean privacy. I do not 
think that there was a room which my lady occupied that 
had not two doors, and some of them had three or four. 
Then my lady had always Adams Waiting upon her in her 
bed-chamber ; and it was Mrs. Medlicott’s duty to sit within 
call, as it were, in a sort of ante-room that led out of my 
lady’s own sitting-room, on the opposite side to the drawing- 
room door. To fancy the house, you must take a great 
square, and halve it by a line ; at one end of this line was 
the hall-door, or public entrance ; at the opposite the private 
entrance from a terrace, which was terminated at one end 
by a sort of postern door in an old grey stone wall, beyond 
which lay the farm buildings and offices; so that people 
could come in this way to my lady on business, while, if she 
were going into the garden from her own room, she had 
nothing to do but to pass through Mrs. Medlicott’s apart- 
ment, out into the lesser hall ; and then, turning to the right 
as she passed on to the terrace, she could go down the flight 
of broad, shallow steps at the corner of the house into the 
lovely garden, with stretching, sweeping lawns, and gay 
flower-beds, and beautiful, bossy laurels, and other blooming 
or massy shrubs, with full-grown beeches, or larches feather- 
ing down to the ground a little farther off. The whole was 
set in a frame, as it were, by the more distant woodlands. 
The house had been modernised in the days of Queen Anne, 

42 


My Lady Ludlow 

I think ; but the money had fallen short that was requisite 
to carry out all the improvements, so it was only the suite 
of withdrawing-rooms and the terrace-rooms, as far as the 
private entrance, that had the new, long, high windows put 
in ; and these were old enough by this time to be draped with 
roses, and honeysuckles, and pyracanthus, winter and 
summer long. 

Well, to go back to that day when I limped into my lady’s 
sitting-room, trying hard to look as if I had not been crying, 
and not to walk as if I was in much pain. I do not know 
whether my lady saw how near the tears were to my eyes, 
but she told me she had sent for me, because she wanted 
some help in arranging the drawers of her bureau, and asked 
me — just as if it was a favour I was to do her — if I could 
sit down in the easy-chair near the window — (all quietly 
arranged before I came in, with a footstool, and a table quite 
near) — and assist her. You will wonder, perhaps, why I was 
not bidden to sit or lie on the sofa ; but (although I found 
one there a morning or two afterwards, when I came down) 
the fact was, that there was none in the room at this time. 
I have even fancied that the easy-chair was brought in on 
purpose for me for it was not the chair in which I remember 
my lady sitting the first time I saw her. That chair was 
very much carved and gilded, with a countess’s coronet at the 
top. I tried it one day, some time afterwards, when my 
lady was out of the room, and I had a fancy for seeing how 
I could move about ; and very uncomfortable it was. Now 
my chair (as I learnt to call it, and to think it) was soft and 
luxurious, and seemed somehow to give one’s body rest just 
in that part where one most needed it. 

I was not at my ease that first day, nor indeed for many 
days afterwards, notwithstanding my chair was so comfort- 
able. Yet I forgot my sad pain in silently wondering over 
the meaning of many of the things we turned out of those 
curious old drawers. I was puzzled to know why some 
were kept at all : a scrap of writing may be, with only half- 
a-dozen commonplace words written on it, or a bit of broken 

43 


My Lady Ludlow 

riding-whip, and here and there a stone, of which I thought 
I could have picked up twenty just as good in the first walk 
I took. But it seems that was just my ignorance ; for my 
lady told me they were pieces of valuable marble, used to 
make the floors of the great Roman emperors’ palaces long 
ago ; and that when she had been a girl, and made the grand 
tour long ago, her cousin, Sir Horace Mann, the ambassador 
or envoy at Florence, had told her to be sure to go into the 
fields inside the walls of ancient Rome, when the farmers 
were preparing the ground for the onion-sowing, and had to 
make the soil fine, and pick up what bits of marble she could 
find. She had done so, and meant to have had them made 
into a table ; but somehow that plan fell through, and there 
they were with all.^e dirt out of the* onion-field upon them ; 
but once when I Ihought of cleaning them with soap and 
water, at any rate;- -she bade me not to do so, for it was 
Roman dirt — earth, I think, she called it — but it was dirt all 
the same. jT. 

Then in this bu£eku, were many other things, the value of 
which I could understand — locks of hair carefully ticketed, 
which my lady looked at very sadly ; and lockets and brace- 
lets with miniatures in them, — very small pictures to what 
they make now-a-days, and called miniatures ; some of them 
had even to be looked at through a microscope before you 
could see the individual expression of the faces, or how beauti- 
fully they were painted. I don’t think that looking at these 
made my lady seem so melancholy, as the seeing and touch- 
ing of the hair did. But, to be sure, the hair was, as it were, 
a part of some beloved body which she might never touch 
and caress again, but which lay beneath the turf, all faded 
and disfigured, except perhaps the very hair from which the 
lock she held had been dissevered ; whereas the pictures 
were but pictures after all — likenesses, but not the very 
things themselves. This is only my own conjecture, mind. 
My lady rarely spoke out her feelings. For, to begin with, 
she was of rank : and I have heard her say that people of 
rank do not talk about their feelings except to their equals, 

44 


My Lady Ludlow 

and even to them they conceal them, except upon rare 
occasions. Secondly — and this is my own reflection — she 
was an only child and an heiress, and as such was more apt 
to think than to talk, as all well-brought-up heiresses must 
be, I think. Thirdly, she had long been a widow, without 
any companion of her own age with whom it would have been 
natural for her to refer to old associations, past pleasures, or 
mutual sorrows. Mrs. Medlicott came nearest to her as a 
companion of this sort; and her ladyship talked more to 
Mrs. Medlicott, in a kind of familiar way, than she did to all 
the rest of the household put together. But Mrs. Medlicott 
was silent by nature, and did not reply at any great length. 
Adams, indeed, was the only one who spoke much to Lady 
Ludlow. 

After we had worked away about an hour at the bureau, 
her ladyship said we had done enough for one day; and, as 
the time was come for her afternoon ride, she left me, with 
a volume of engravings from Mr. Hogarth’s pictures on one 
side of me (I don’t like to write down the names of them, 
though my lady thought nothing of it, I am sure), and upon 
a stand her great Prayer-book open at the evening psalms 
for the day, on the other. But, as soon as she was gone, I 
troubled myself little with either, but amused myself with 
looking round the room at my leisure. The side on which 
the fireplace stood was all panelled — part of the old orna- 
ments of the house, for there was an Indian paper with birds 
and beasts and insects on it, on all the other sides. There 
were coats of arms, of the various families with whom the 
Hanburys had intermarried, all over these panels, and up and 
down the ceiling as well. There was very little looking-glass 
in the room, though one of the great drawing-rooms was 
called the “ Mirror Boom,” because it was lined with glass, 
which my lady’s great-grandfather had brought from Venice 
when he was ambassador there. There were china jars of 
all shapes and sizes round and about the room, and some 
china monsters, or idols, of which I could never bear the 
sight, they were so ugly, though I think my lady valued 

45 


My Lady Ludlow 

them more than all. There was a thick carpet on the middle 
of the floor, which was made of small pieces of rare wool 
fitted into a pattern ; the doors were opposite to each other, 
and were composed of two heavy tall wings, and opened in 
the middle, moving on brass grooves inserted into the floor — 
they would not have opened over a carpet. There were two 
windows reaching up nearly to the ceiling, but very narrow, 
and with deep window-seats in the thickness of the wall. 
The room was full of scent, partly from the flowers outside, 
and partly from the great jars of pot-pourri inside. The 
choice of odours was what my lady piqued herself upon, 
saying nothing showed birth like a keen susceptibility of 
smell. We never named musk in her presence, her anti- 
pathy to it was so well understood through the household : 
her opinion on the subject was believed to be, that no scent 
derived from an animal could ever be of a sufficiently pure 
nature to give pleasure to any person of good family, where, 
of course, the delicate perception of the senses had been 
cultivated for generations. She would instance the way in 
which sportsmen preserve the breed of dogs who have shown 
keen scent; and how such gifts descend for generations 
amongst animals, who cannot be supposed to have anything 
of ancestral pride, or hereditary fancies about them. Musk, 
then, was never mentioned at Hanbury Court. No more 
were bergamot or southernwood, although vegetable in their 
nature. She considered these two latter as betraying a 
vulgar taste in the person who chose to gather or wear them. 
She was sorry to notice sprigs of them in the button-hole of 
any young man in whom she took an interest, either because 
he was engaged to a servant of hers or otherwise, as he came 
jut of church on a Sunday afternoon. She was afraid that 
he liked coarse pleasures ; and I am not sure if she did not 
think that his preference for these coarse sweetnesses did 
not imply a probability that he would take to drinking. But 
she distinguished between vulgar and common. Violets, 
pinks, and sweetbriar were common enough ; roses and 
mignonette, for those who had gardens, honeysuckle for those 

46 


My Lady Ludlow 

who walked along the bowery lanes ; but wearing them 
betrayed no vulgarity of taste : the queen upon her throne 
might be glad to smell at a nosegay of the flowers. A beau- 
pot (as we called it) of pinks and roses freshly gathered was 
placed every morning that they were in bloom on my lady’s 
own particular table. For lasting vegetable odours she pre- 
ferred lavender and sweet-woodroof to any extract whatever. 
Lavender reminded her of old customs, she said, and of 
homely cottage-gardens, and many a cottager made his 
offering to her of a bundle of lavender. Sweet-woodroof, 
again, grew in wild, woodland places, where the soil was 
fine and the air delicate : the poor children used to go and 
gather it for her up in the woods on the higher lands ; and 
for this service she always rewarded them with bright new 
pennies, of which my lord, her son, used to send her down a 
bagful fresh from the Mint in London every February. 

Attar of roses, again, she disliked. She said it reminded 
her of the city and of merchants’ wives, over-rich, over-heavy 
in its perfume. And lilies of the valley somehow fell under 
the same condemnation. They were most graceful and 
elegant to look at (my lady was quite candid about this), 
flower, leaf, colour — everything was refined about them but 
the smell. That was too strong. But the great hereditary 
faculty on which my lady piqued herself, and with reason, 
for I never met with any person who possessed it, was the 
power she had of perceiving the delicious odour arising from 
a bed of strawberries in the late autumn, when the leaves 
were all fading and dying. “ Bacon’s Essays ” was one of 
the few books that lay about in my lady’s room ; and, if you 
took it up and opened it carelessly, it was sure to fall apart 
at his “ Essay on Gardens.” “ Listen,” her ladyship would 
say, “ to what that great philosopher and statesman says. 

‘ Next to that ’ — he is speaking of violets, my dear — ‘ is the 
musk-rose ’ — of which you remember the great bush, at the 
corner of the south wall just by the Blue Drawing-room 
windows ; that is the old musk-rose, Shakespeare’s musk- 
rose, which is dying out through the kingdom now. But to 

47 


My Lady Ludlow 

return to my Lord Bacon : ‘ Then the strawberry leaves, 
dying with a most excellent cordial smell.’ Now the Han- 
burys can always smell this excellent cordial odour, and very 
delicious and refreshing it is. You see, in Lord Bacon’s 
time, there had not been so many intermarriages between the 
court and the city as there have been since the needy days of 
his Majesty Charles the Second ; and altogether, in the time 
of Queen Elizabeth, the great, old families of England were a 
distinct race, just as a cart-horse is one creature, and very 
useful in its place, and Childers or Eclipse is another creature, 
though both are of the same species. So the old families 
have gifts and powers of a different and higher class to what 
the other orders have. My dear, remember that you try if 
you can smell the scent of dying strawberry-leaves in this 
next autumn. You have some of Ursula Hanbury’s blood in 
you, and that gives you a chance.” 

But when October came, I sniffed and sniffed, and all to 
no purpose ; and my lady— who had watched the little 
experiment rather anxiously — had to give me up as a hybrid. 
I was mortified, I confess, and thought that it was in some 
ostentation of her own powers that she ordered the gardener 
to plant a border of strawberries on that side of the terrace 
that lay under her windows. 

I have wandered away from time and place. I tell you 
all the remembrances I have of those years just as they 
come up, and I hope that, in my old age, I am not getting 
too like a certain Mrs. Nickleby, whose speeches were once 
read out aloud to me. 

I came by degrees to be all day long in this room which 
I have been describing ; sometimes sitting in the easy-chair, 
doing some little pieces of dainty work for my lady, or 
sometimes arranging flowers, or sorting letters according to 
their handwriting, so that she could arrange them after- 
wards, and destroy or keep, as she planned, looking ever 
onward to her death. Then, after the sofa was brought in, 
she would watch my face, and if she saw my colour change, 
she would bid me lie down and rest. And I used to try to 

48 


My Lady Ludlow 

walk upon the terrace every day for a short time ; it hurt me 
very much, it is true, but the doctor had ordered it, and I 
knew her ladyship wished me to obey. 

Before I had seen the background of a great lady’s life, 
I had thought it all play and fine doings. But whatever 
other grand people are, my lady was never idle. For one 
thing, she had to superintend the agent for the large Han- 
bury estate. I believe it was mortgaged for a sum of money 
which had gone to improve the late lord’s Scotch lands; but 
she was anxious to pay off this before her death, and so to 
leave her own inheritance free of incumbrance to her son, 
the present Earl ; whom, I secretly think, she considered a 
greater person, as being the heir of the Hanburys (though 
through a female line), than as being my Lord Ludlow with 
half-a-dozen other minor titles. 

With this wish of releasing her property from the mort- 
gage, skilful care was much needed in the management of it ; 
and as far as my lady could go, she took every pains. She 
had a great book, in which every page was ruled into three 
divisions ; on the first column was written the date and the 
name of the tenant who addressed any letter on business to 
her; on the second was briefly stated the subject of the 
letter, which generally contained a request of some kind. 
This request would be surrounded and enveloped in so many 
words, and often inserted amidst so many odd reasons and 
excuses, that Mr. Horner (the steward) would sometimes say 
it was like hunting through a bushel of chaff to find a grain 
of wheat. Now, in the second column of this book, the 
grain of meaning was placed, clean and dry, before her lady- 
ship every morning. She sometimes would ask to see the 
original letter ; sometimes she simply answered the request 
by a “ Yes,” or a “ No ; ” and often she would send for leases 
and papers, and examine them well, with Mr. Horner at her 
elbow, to see if such petitions, as to be allowed to plough up 
pasture fields, &c., were provided for in the terms of the 
original agreement. On every Thursday she made herself 
at liberty to see her tenants, from four to six in the afternoon. 

49 E 


My Lady Ludlow 

Mornings would have suited my lady better, as far as conve- 
nience went, and I believe the old custom had been to have 
these levees (as her ladyship used to call them) held before 
twelve. But, as she said to Mr. Horner, when he urged 
returning to the former hours, it spoilt a whole day for a 
farmer, if he had to dress himself in his best and leave his 
work in the forenoon (and my lady liked to see her tenants 
come in their Sunday clothes; she would not say a word, 
may be, but she would take her spectacles slowly out, and 
put them on with silent gravity, and look at a dirty or 
raggedly-dressed man so solemnly and earnestly, that his 
nerves must have been pretty strong if he did not wince, 
and resolve that, however poor he might be, soap and water, 
and needle and thread, should be used before he again 
appeared in her ladyship’s ante-room). The outlying tenants 
had always a supper provided for them in the servants’ hall 
on Thursdays, to which, indeed, all comers were welcome 
to sit down. For my lady said, though there were not many 
hours left of a working-man’s day when their business with 
her was ended, yet that they needed food and rest, and that 
she should be ashamed if they sought either at the Fighting 
Lion (called at this day the Hanbury Arms). They had as 
much beer as they could drink while they were eating ; and, 
when the food was cleared away, they had a cup apiece of 
good ale, in which the oldest tenant present, standing up, 
gave Madam’s health ; and after that was drunk, they were 
expected to set off homewards ; at any rate, no more liquor was 
given them. The tenants one and all called her “ Madam ” ; 
for they recognised in her the married heiress of the Han- 
burys, not the widow of a Lord Ludlow, of whom they and 
their forefathers knew nothing ; and against whose memory, 
indeed, there rankled a dim unspoken grudge, the cause of 
which was accurately known to the very few who understood 
the nature of a mortgage, and were therefore aware that 
Madam’s money had been taken to enrich my lord’s poor 
land in Scotland. I am sure — for you can understand I was 
behind the scenes, as it were, and had many an opportunity 

5o 


My Lady Ludlow 

of seeing and hearing, as I lay or sat motionless in my lady’s 
room with the double doors open between it and the ante- 
room beyond, where Lady Ludlow saw her steward, and 
gave audience to her tenants — I am certain, I say, that 
Mr. Horner was silently as much annoyed at the money 
that was swallowed up by this mortgage as any one ; and, 
some time or other, he had probably spoken his mind out to 
my lady ; for there was a sort of offended reference on her 
part, and respectful submission to blame on his, while every 
now and then there was an implied protest — whenever the 
payments of the interest became due, or whenever my lady 
stinted herself of any personal expense, such as Mr. Horner 
thought was only decorous and becoming in the heiress of 
the Hanburys. Her carriages were old and cumbrous, 
wanting all the improvements which had been adopted by 
those of her rank throughout the county. Mr. Horner would 
fain have had the ordering of a new coach. The carriage- 
horses, too, were getting past their work; yet all the 
promising colts bred on the estate were sold for ready 
money ; and so on. My lord, her son, was ambassador at 
some foreign place, and very proud we all were of his glory 
and dignity ; but I fancy it cost money, and my lady would 
have lived on bread and water sooner than have called upon 
him to help her in paying off the mortgage, although he was 
the one who was to benefit by it in the end. 

Mr. Horner was a very faithful steward, and very 
respectful to my lady ; although sometimes, I thought, she 
was sharper to him than to any one else ; perhaps because she 
knew that, although he never said anything, he disapproved 
of the Hanburys being made to pay for the Earl Ludlow’s 
estates and state. 

The late lord had been a sailor, and had been as extrava- 
gant in his habits as most sailors are, I am told — for I never 
was at sea ; and yet he had a long sight to his own interests ; 
but whatever he was, my lady loved him and his memory, 
with about as fond and proud a love as ever wife gave husband, 
I should think. 

5i 


My Lady Ludlow 

For a part of his life Mr. Horner, who was born on the 
Hanbury property, had been a clerk to an attorney in Bir- 
mingham; and these few years had given him a kind of 
worldly wisdom, which, though always exerted for her benefit, 
was antipathetic to her ladyship, who thought that some of 
her steward’s maxims savoured of trade and commerce. I 
fancy that if it had been possible, she would have preferred 
a return to the primitive system, of living on the produce of 
the land, and exchanging the surplus for such articles as were 
needed, without the intervention of money. 

But Mr. Horner was bitten with new-fangled notions, as 
she would say, though his new-fangled notions were what 
folk at the present day would think sadly behindhand ; and 
some of Mr. Gray’s ideas fell on Mr. Horner’s mind like 
sparks on tow, though they started from two different points. 
Mr. Horner wanted to make every man useful and active in 
this world, and to direct as much activity and usefulness as 
possible to the improvement of the Hanbury estates, and the 
aggrandisement of the Hanbury family, and therefore he fell 
into the new cry for education. 

Mr. Gray did not care much — Mr. Horner thought not 
enough — for this world, and where any man or family stood 
in their earthly position ; but he would have every one pre- 
pared for the world to come, and capable of understanding 
and receiving certain doctrines, for which latter purpose, it 
stands to reason, he must have heard of these doctrines ; and 
therefore Mr. Gray wanted education. The answer in the 
Catechism that Mr. Horner was most fond of calling upon a 
child to repeat, was that to, “ What is thy duty towards thy 
neighbour ? ” The answer Mr. Gray liked best to hear re- 
peated with unction was that to the question, “ What is the 
inward and spiritual grace ? ” The reply to which Lady 
Ludlow bent her head the lowest, as we said our Catechism 
to her on Sundays, was to, “ What is thy duty towards 
God?” But neither Mr. Horner nor Mr. Gray had heard 
many answers to the Catechism as yet. 

Up to this time there was no Sunday-school in Hanbury. 

52 


My Lady Ludlow 

Mr. Gray’s desires were bounded by that object. Mr. Horner 
looked farther on : he hoped for a day-school at some future 
time, to train up intelligent labourers for working on the 
estate. My lady would hear of neither the one nor the other ; 
indeed, not the boldest man whom she ever saw would have 
dared to name the project of a day-school within her hearing. 

So Mr. Horner contented himself with quietly teaching a 
sharp, clever lad to read and write, with a view to making 
use of him as a kind of foreman in process of time. He had 
his pick of the farm-lads for this purpose ; and, as the 
brightest and sharpest, although by far the raggedest and 
dirtiest, singled out Job GregSon’s son. But all this — as my 
lady never listened to gossip, or, indeed, was spoken to unless 
she spoke first — was quite unknown to her, until the unlucky 
incident took place which I am going to relate. 


CHAPTER IV 

I think my lady was not aware of Mr. Homer’s views on 
education (as making men into more useful members of 
society), or the practice to which he was putting his precepts 
in taking Harry Gregson as pupil and protege — if, indeed, 
she were aware of Harry’s distinct existence at all — until the 
following unfortunate occasion. The ante-room, which was 
a kind of business-place for my lady to receive her steward 
and tenants in, was surrounded by shelves. I cannot call 
them book-shelves, though there were many books on them ; 
but the contents of the volumes were principally manuscript, 
and relating to details connected with the Hanbury property. 
There were also one or two dictionaries, gazetteers, works of 
reference on the management of property ; all of a very old 
date (the dictionary was Bailey’s, I remember ; we had a 
great Johnson in my lady’s room, but, where lexicographers 
differed, she generally preferred Bailey). 

53 


My Lady Ludlow 

In this ante-chamber a footman generally sat, awaiting 
orders from my lady ; for she clung to the grand old customs, 
and despised any bells, except her own little hand-bell, as 
modern inventions ; she would have her people always 
within summons of this silvery bell, or her scarce less silvery 
voice. This man had not the sinecure you might imagine. 
He had to reply to the private entrance : what we should 
call the back door in a smaller house. As none came to the 
front door but my lady, and those of the county whom she 
honoured by visiting, and her nearest acquaintance of this 
kind lived eight miles (of bad road) off, the majority of 
comers knocked at the nail-studded terrace door ; not to have 
it opened (for open it stood, by my lady’s orders, winter and 
summer, .so that the snow often drifted into the back hall, 
and lay there in heaps when the weather was severe), but to 
summon some one to receive their message, or carry their 
request to be allowed to speak to my lady. I remember it 
was long before Mr. Gray could be made to understand that 
the great door was only open on state occasions, and even 
to the last he would as soon come in by that as the terrace 
entrance. I had been received there on my first setting foot 
over my lady’s threshold ; every stranger was led in by that 
way the first time they came ; but after that (with the excep- 
tions I have named) they went round by the terrace, as it 
were by instinct. It was an assistance to this instinct to be 
aware that, from time immemorial, the magnificent and fierce 
Hanbury wolf-hounds, which were extinct in every other part 
of the island, had been and still were kept chained in the 
front quadrangle, where they bayed through a great part of 
the day and night, and were always ready with their deep, 
savage growl at the sight of every person and thing, except- 
ing the man who fed them, my lady’s carriage and four, and 
my lady herself. It was pretty to see her small figure go up 
to the great, crouching brutes, thumping the flags with their 
heavy, wagging tails, and slobbering in an ecstasy of delight, 
at her light approach and soft caress. She had no fear of 
them ; but she was a Hanbury born, and the tale went, that 

54 


My Lady Ludlow 

they and their kind knew all Hanburys instantly, and acknow- 
ledged their supremacy, ever since the ancestors of the breed 
had been brought from the East by the great Sir Urian Han- 
bury, who lay with his legs crossed on the altar- tomb in the 
church. Moreover, it was reported that, not fifty years 
before, one of these dogs had eaten up a child, which had 
inadvertently strayed within reach of its chain. So you may 
imagine how most people preferred the terrace door. Mr. 
Gray did not seem to care for the dogs. It might be absence 
of mind, for I have heard of his starting away from their 
sudden spring when he had unwittingly walked within reach 
of their chains ; but it could hardly have been absence of 
mind, when one day he went right up to one of them, and 
patted him in the most friendly manner, the dog meanwhile 
looking pleased, and affably wagging his tail, just as if Mr. 
Gray had been a Hanbury. We were all very much puzzled 
by this, and to this day I have not been able to account for it. 

But now let us go back to the terrace door, and the 
footman sitting in the ante-chamber. 

One morning we heard a parleying, which rose to such a 
vehemence, and lasted for so long, that my lady had to ring 
her hand-bell twice before the footman heard it. 

“What is the matter, John?” asked she, when he 
entered. 

“A little boy, my lady, who says he comes from Mr. 
Horner, and must see your ladyship. Impudent little lad ! ” 
(This last to himself.) 

“ What does he want ? ” 

“ That’s just what I have asked him, my lady ; but he 
won’t tell me, please your ladyship.” 

“ It is, probably, some message from Mr. Horner,” said 
Lady Ludlow, with just a shade of annoyance in her manner ; 
for it was against all etiquette to send a message to her, and 
by such a messenger too ! 

“ No ! please your ladyship, I asked him if he had any 
message, and he said no, he had none ; but he must see your 
ladyship for all that.” 


55 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ Yon had better show him in then, without more words,” 
said her ladyship quietly, but still, as I have said, rather 
annoyed. 

As if in mockery of the humble visitor, the footman threw 
open both battants of the door, and in the opening there 
stood a lithe, wiry lad, with a thick head of hair, standing 
out in every direction, as if stirred by some electrical current, 
a short, brown face, red now from affright and excitement, 
wide, resolute mouth, and bright, deep-set eyes, which glanced 
keenly and rapidly round the room, as if taking in everything 
(and all was new and strange), to be thought and puzzled 
over at some future time. He knew enough of manners not 
to speak first to one above him in rank, or else he was afraid. 

“What do you want with me?” asked my lady, in so 
gentle a tone that it seemed to surprise and stun him. 

“ An’t please your ladyship ? ” said he, as if he had been 
deaf. 

“ You come from Mr. Horner’s : why do you want to see 
me ? ” again asked she, a little more loudly. 

“ An’t please your ladyship, Mr. Horner was sent for all 
on a sudden to Warwick this morning.” 

His face began to work ; but he felt it, and closed his lips 
into a resolute form. 

“ Web ? ” 

“ And he went off all on a sudden like.” 

“ Well ? ” 

“ And he left a note for your ladyship with me, your 
ladyship.” 

“ Is that all? You might have given it to the footman.” 

“ Please your ladyship, I’ve clean gone and lost it.” 

He never took his eyes off her face. If he had not kept 
his look fixed, he would have burst out crying. 

“ That was very careless,” said my lady gently. “ But I 
am sure you are very sorry for it. You had better try and 
find it ; it may have been of consequence.” 

“ Please, mum — please your ladyship — I can say it off by 
heart.” 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ You ! What do you mean ? ” I was really afraid now. 
My lady’s blue eyes absolutely gave out light, she was so 
much displeased, and, moreover, perplexed. The more 
reason he had for affright, the more his courage rose. He 
must have seen — so sharp a lad must have perceived — her 
displeasure ; but he went on quickly and steadily. 

“ Mr. Horner, my lady, has taught me to read, write, and 
cast accounts, my lady. And he was in a hurry, and he 
folded his paper up, but he did not seal it ; and I read it, my 
lady ; and now, my lady, it seems like as if I had got it off 
by heart; ” and he went on with a high-pitched voice, say- 
ing out very loud what, I have no doubt, were the identical 
words of the letter, date, signature, and all : it was merely 
something about a deed, which required my lady’s signature. 

When he had done, he stood almost as if he expected 
commendation for his accurate memory. 

My lady’s eyes contracted till the pupils were as needle- 
points ; it was a way she had when much disturbed. She 
looked at me, and said — 

“ Margaret Dawson, what will this world come to ? ” 
And then she was silent. 

The lad, beginning to perceive he had given deep offence, 
stood stock still — as if his brave will had brought him into 
this presence, and impelled him to confession, and the best 
amends he could make, but had now deserted him, or was 
extinct, and left his body motionless, until some one else 
with word or deed made him quit the room. My lady looked 
again at him, and saw the frowning, dumb- foundering terror 
at his misdeed, and the manner in which his confession had 
been received. 

“ My poor lad ! ” said she, the angry look leaving her 
face, “ into whose hands have you fallen ? ” 

The boy’s lips began to quiver. 

“ Don’t you know what tree we read of in Genesis ? — 
No ! I hope you have not got to read so easily as that.” 
A pause. “ Who has taught you to read and write ? ” 

“ Please, my lady, I meant no harm, my lady.” He was 

57 


My Lady Ludlow 

fairly blubbering, overcome by her evident feeling of dismay 
and regret, the soft repression of which was more frighten- 
ing to him than any strong or violent words would have 
been. 

“ Who taught you, I ask ? ” 

“ It were Mr. Horner’s clerk who learned me, my lady.” 

“ And did Mr. Horner know of it ? ” 

“ Yes, my lady. And I am sure I thought for to please 
him.” 

“ Well ! perhaps you were not to blame for that. But I 
wonder at Mr. Horner. However, my boy, as you have got 
possession of edge-tools, you must have some rules how to 
use them. Did you never hear that you were not to open 
letters ? ” 

“ Please, my lady, it were open. Mr. Horner forgot to 
seal it, in his hurry to be off.” 

“ But you must not read letters that are not intended for 
you. You must never try to read any letters that are not 
directed to you, even if they be open before you.” 

“ Please, my lady, I thought it were good for practice, all 
as one as a book.” 

My lady looked bewildered as to what way she could 
farther explain to him the laws of honour as regarded 
letters. 

“ You would not listen, I am sure,” said she, “ to any- 
thing you were not intended to hear ? ” 

He hesitated for a moment, partly because he did not 
fully comprehend the question. My lady repeated it. The 
light of intelligence came into his eager eyes, and I could see 
that he was not certain if he could tell the truth. 

“ Please, my lady, I always hearken when I hear folk 
talking secrets ; but I mean no harm.” 

My poor lady sighed : she was not prepared to begin a 
long way off in morals. Honour was, to her, second nature, 
and she had never tried to find out on what principle its laws 
were based. So, telling the lad that she wished to see Mr. 
Horner when he returned from Warwick, she dismissed him 

58 


My Lady Ludlow 

with a despondent look ; he, meanwhile, right glad to be out 
of the awful gentleness of her presence. 

“ What is to be done ? ” said she, half to herself and half 
to me. I could not answer, for I was puzzled myself. 

“ It was a right word,” she continued, “ that I used, 
when I called reading and writing ‘ edge-tools.’ If our lower 
orders have these edge-tools given to them, we shall have 
the terrible scenes of the French Eevolution acted over again 
in England. When I was a girl, one never heard of the 
rights of men, one only heard of the duties. Now, here was 
Mr. Gray, only last night, talking of the right every child had 
to instruction. I could hardly keep my patience with him, 
and at length we fairly came to words ; and I told him I 
would have no such thing as a Sunday-school (or a Sabbath- 
school, as he calls it, just like a Jew) in my village.” 

“ And what did he say, my lady ? ” I asked ; for the 
struggle that seemed now to have come to a crisis had been 
going on for some time in a quiet way. 

“ Why, he gave way to temper, and said, he was bound 
to remember he was under the bishop’s authority, not under 
mine ; and implied that he should persevere in his designs, 
notwithstanding my expressed opinion.” 

“ And your ladyship ” 1 half inquired. 

“ I could only rise and curtsey, and civilly dismiss him. 
When two persons have arrived at a certain point of ex- 
pression on a subject, about which they differ as materially 
as I do from Mr. Gray, the wisest course, if they wish to 
remain friends, is to drop the conversation entirely and 
suddenly. It is one of the few cases where abruptness is 
desirable.” 

I was sorry for Mr. Gray. He had been to see me 
several times, and had helped me to bear my illness in a 
better spirit than I should have done without his good advice 
and prayers. And I had gathered, from little things he said, 
how much his heart was set upon this new scheme. I liked 
him so much, and I loved and respected my lady so well, 
that I could not bear them to be on the cool terms to which 

59 


My Lady Ludlow 

they were constantly getting. Yet I could do nothing but 
keep silence. 

I suppose my lady understood something of what was 
passing in my mind ; for, after a minute or two, she went 
on — 

“ If Mr. Gray knew all I know — if he had my experience, 
he would not be so ready to speak of setting up his new 
plans in opposition to my judgment. Indeed,” she con- 
tinued, lashing herself up with her own recollections, “ times 
are changed when the parson of a village comes to beard the 
liege lady in her own house. Why, in my grandfather’s 
days, the parson was family chaplain too, and dined at the 
Hall every Sunday. He was helped last, and expected to 
have done first. I remember seeing him take up his plate 
and knife and fork, and say, with his mouth full all the time 
he was speaking : ‘ If you please, Sir Urian, and my lady, 
I’ll follow the beef into the housekeeper’s room ’ ; for, you 
see, unless he did so, he stood no chance of a second helping. 
A greedy man, that parson was, to be sure ! I recollect his 
once eating up the whole of some little bird at dinner, and, by 
way of diverting attention from his greediness, he told how 
he had heard that a rook soaked in vinegar and then dressed 
in a particular way, could not be distinguished from the bird 
he was then eating. I saw by the grim look of my grand- 
father’s face that the parson’s doing and saying displeased 
him ; and, child as I was, I had some notion of what was 
coming, when, as I was riding out on my little white pony 
by my grandfather’s side the next Friday, he stopped one of 
the gamekeepers, and bade him shoot one of the oldest rooks 
he could find. I knew no more about it till Sunday, when 
a dish was set right before the parson, and Sir Urian said : 

‘ Now Parson Hemming, I have had a rook shot, and soaked 
in vinegar, and dressed as you described last Sunday. Fall 
to, man, and eat it with as good an appetite as you had last 

Sunday. Pick the bones clean, or by , no more Sunday 

dinners shall you eat at my table ! ’ I gave one look at poor 
Mr. Hemming’s face, as he tried to swallow the first morsel, 

60 


My Lady Ludlow 

and make believe as though he thought it very good ; but I 
could not look again for shame, although my grandfather 
laughed, and kept asking us all round if we knew what could 
have become of the parson’s appetite.” 

“ And did he finish it ? ” I asked. 

“ Oh yes, my dear. What my grandfather said was to 
be done, was done always. He was a terrible man in his 
anger! But to think of the difference between Parson 
Hemming and Mr. Gray ! or even of poor dear Mr. Mount- 
ford and Mr. Gray. Mr. Mountford would never have 
withstood me as Mr. Gray did ! ” 

“ And your ladyship really thinks that it would not be 
right to have a Sunday-school ? ” I asked, feeling very timid 
as I put the question. 

“ Certainly not. As I told Mr. Gray, I consider a know- 
ledge of the Creed, and of the Lord’s Prayer, as essential to 
salvation ; and that any child may have, whose parents 
bring it regularly to church. Then there are the Ten Com- 
mandments, which teach simple duties in the plainest 
language. Of course, if a lad is taught to read and write (as 
that unfortunate boy has been who was here this morning) 
his duties become complicated, and his temptations much 
greater, while, at the same time, he has no hereditary 
principles and honourable training to serve as safeguards. 
I might take up my old simile of the race-horse and cart- 
horse. I am distressed,” continued she, with a break in her 
ideas, “ about that boy. The whole thing reminds me so 
much of a story of what happened to a friend of mine — • 
Clement de Crequy. Did I ever tell you about him ? ” 

“ No, your ladyship,” I replied. 

“ Poor Clement ! More than twenty years ago, Lord 
Ludlow and I spent a winter in Paris. He had many 
friends there ; perhaps not very good or very wise men, but 
he was so kind that he liked every one, and every one liked 
him. We had an apartment, as they call it there, in the 
Bue de Lille ; we had the first-floor of a grand hotel, with 
the basement for our servants. On the floor above us the 

61 


My Lady Ludlow 

owner of the house lived, a Marquise de Crequy, a widow. 
They tell me that the Crequy coat-of-arms is still emblazoned, 
after all these terrible years, on a shield above the arched 
porte-cochere , just as it was then, though the family is quite 
extinct. Madam de Crequy had only one son, Clement, who 
was just the same age as my Urian — you may see his 
portrait in the great hall — Urian’ s, I mean.” I knew that 
Master Urian had been drowned at sea; and often had I 
looked at the presentment of his bonny hopeful face, in his 
sailor’s dress, with right hand outstretched to a ship on the 
sea in the distance, as if he had just said, “ Look at her ! all 
her sails are set, and I’m just off.” Poor Master Urian ! he 
went down in this very ship not a year after the picture was 
taken ! But now I will go back to my lady’s story. “ I can 
see those two boys playing now,” continued she softly, 
shutting her eyes, as if the better to call up the vision, “ as 
they used to do five-and-twenty years ago in those old- 
fashioned French gardens behind our hotel. Many a time 
have I watched them from my windows. It was, perhaps, a 
better play-place than an English garden would have been, 
for there were but few flower-beds, and no lawn at all to 
speak about; but, instead, terraces and balustrades and 
vases and flights of $tone steps more in the Italian style; 
and there were jets-d’eau, and little fountains that could be 
set playing by turning water- cocks that were hidden here 
and there. How Clement delighted in turning the water on 
to surprise Urian, and how gracefully he did the honours, as 
it were, to my dear, rough, sailor lad ! Urian was as dark as 
a gipsy boy, and cared little for his appearance, and resisted 
all my efforts at setting off his black eyes and tangled curls ; 
but Clement, without ever showing that he thought about 
himself and his dress, was always dainty and elegant, even 
though his clothes were sometimes but threadbare. He 
used to be dressed in a kind of hunter’s green suit, open at 
the neck and half-way down the chest to beautiful old lace 
frills ; his long golden curls fell behind just like a girl’s, and 
his hair in front was cut over his straight dark eyebrows in a 

62 


My Lady Ludlow 

line almost as straight. Urian learnt more of a gentleman’s 
carefulness and propriety of appearance from that lad in two 
months than he had done in years from all my lectures. 
I recollect one day, when the two boys were in full romp — 
and, my window being open, I could hear them perfectly — 
and Urian was daring Clement to some scrambling or 
climbing, which Clement refused to undertake, but in a 
hesitating way, as though he longed to do it if some reason 
had not stood in the way; and at times Urian, who was 
hasty and thoughtless, poor fellow, told Clement that he was 
afraid. * Fear ! ’ said the French boy, drawing himself up ; 
‘ you do not know what you say. If you will be here at six 
to-morrow morning, when it is only just light, I will take 
that starling’s nest on the top of yonder chimney.’ ‘ But 
why not now, Clement ? ’ said Urian, putting his arm round 
Clement’s neck. ‘ Why then, and not now, just when we 
are In the humour for it ? ’ ‘ Because we De Crequys are 

poor, and my mother cannot afford me another suit of clothes 
this year, and yonder stone carving is all jagged, and would 
tear my coat and breeches. Now, to-morrow morning I 
could go up with nothing on but an old shirt.’ 

“ ‘ But you would tear your legs.’ 

“ ‘ My race do not care for pain,’ said the boy, drawing 
himself from Urian’s arm, and walking a few steps away, 
with a becoming pride and reserve ; for he was hurt at being 
spoken to as if he were afraid, and annoyed at having to 
confess the true reason for declining the feat. But Urian was 
not to be thus baffled. He went up to Clement, and put his 
arm once more about his neck, and I could see the two lads 
as they walked down the terrace away from the hotel 
windows : first Urian spoke eagerly, looking with imploring 
fondness into Clement’s face, which sought the ground, till 
at last the French boy spoke, and by-and-by his arm was 
round Urian too, and they paced backwards and forwards 
in deep talk, but gravely, as became men, rather than boys. 

“ All at once, from the little chapel at the corner of the 
large garden belonging to the Missions Etrangeres, I heard 

63 


My Lady Ludlow 

the tinkle of the little bell, announcing the elevation of the 
host. Down on his knees went Clement, hands crossed, 
eyes bent down : while Urian stood looking on in respectful 
thought. 

“ What a friendship that might have been ! I never 
dream of Urian without seeing Clement too — Urian speaks 
to me, or does something — but Clement only flits round 
Urian, and never seems to see any one else ! 

“ But I must not forget to tell you, that the next morning, 
before he was out of his room, a footman of Madame de 
Crequy ’s brought Urian the starling’s nest. 

“ Well ! we came back to England, and the boys were 
to correspond; and Madame de Crequy and I exchanged 
civilities ; and Urian went to sea. 

“ After that, all seemed to drop away. I cannot tell you 
all. However, to confine myself to the De Crequys. I had 
a letter from Clement ; I knew he felt his friend’s death 
deeply ; but I should never have learnt it from the letter he 
sent. It was formal, and seemed like chaff to my hungering 
heart. Poor fellow ! I dare say he had found it hard to 
write. What could he — or any one — say to a mother who 
has lost her child ? The world does not think so, and, in 
general, one must conform to the customs of the world ; but, 
judging from my own experience, I should say that reverent 
silence at such times is the tenderest balm. Madame de 
Crequy wrote too. But I knew she could not feel my loss 
so much as Clement, and therefore her letter was not such 
a disappointment. She and I went on being civil and polite 
in the way of commissions, and occasionally introducing 
friends to each other, for a year or two, and then we ceased 
to have any intercourse. Then the terrible Be volution came. 
No one who did not live at those times can imagine the daily 
expectation of news — the hourly terror of rumours affecting 
the fortunes and lives of those whom most of us had known 
as pleasant hosts, receiving us with peaceful welcome in 
their magnificent houses. Of course, there was sin enough 
and suffering enough behind the scenes ; but we English 

64 


My Lady Ludlow 

visitors to Paris had seen little or nothing of that — and I 
had sometimes thought, indeed, how even Death seemed loth 
to choose his victims out of that brilliant throng whom I had 
known. Madame de Crequy’s one boy lived; while three 
out of my six were gone since we had met ! I do not think 
all lots are equal, even now that I know the end of her 
hopes ; but I do say that whatever our individual lot is, it 
is our duty to accept it, without comparing it with that of 
others. 

“ The times were thick with gloom and terror. ‘ What 
next ? ’ was the question we asked of every one who brought 
us news from Paris. Where were these demons hidden 
when, so few years ago, we danced and feasted, and enjoyed 
the brilliant salons and the charming friendships of Paris ? 

“ One evening, I was sitting alone in Saint James’s 
Square ; my lord off at the club with Mr. Fox and others : 
he had left me, thinking that I should go to one of the many 
places to which I had been invited for that evening ; but I 
had no heart to go anywhere, for it was poor Urian’s birth- 
day, and I had not even rung for lights, though the day was 
fast closing in, but was thinking over all his pretty ways, 
and on his warm affectionate nature, and how often I had 
been too hasty in speaking to him for all I loved him so 
dearly ; and how I seemed to have neglected and dropped 
his dear friend Clement, who might even now be in need of 
help in that cruel, bloody Paris. I say I was thinking 
reproachfully of all this, and particularly of Clement de 
Crequy in connection with Urian, when Fenwick brought 
me a note, sealed with a coat- of arms I knew well, though I 
could not remember at the moment where I had seen it. 
I puzzled over it as one does sometimes, for a minute or 
more, before I opened the letter. In a moment I saw it 
was from Clement de Crequy. ‘ My mother is here,’ he 
said : ‘ she is very ill, and I am bewildered in this strange 
country. May I entreat you to receive me for a few 
minutes ? ’ The bearer of the note was the woman of the 
house where they lodged. I had her brought up into the 

65 F 


My Lady Ludlow 

ante-room, and questioned her myself, while my carriage 
was being brought round. They had arrived in London a 
fortnight or so before ; she had not known their quality , 
judging them (according to her kind) by their dress and 
their luggage : poor enough, no doubt. The lady had never 
left her bedroom since her arrival ; the young man waited 
upon her, did everything for her, never left her, in fact ; only 
she (the messenger) had promised to stay within call, as 
soon as she returned, while he went out somewhere. She 
could hardly understand him, he spoke English so badly. 
He had never spoken it, I dare say, since he had talked to 
my Urian. 


CHAPTEE Y 

“ In the hurry of the moment I scarce knew what I did. 
I bade the housekeeper put up every delicacy she had, in 
order to tempt the invalid, whom yet I hoped to bring back 
with me to our house. When the carriage was ready I took 
the good woman with me to show us the exact way, which 
my coachman professed not to know ; for, indeed, they were 
staying at but a poor kind of place at the back of Leicester 
Square, of which they had heard, as Clement told me after- 
wards, from one of the fishermen who had carried them 
across from the Dutch coast in their disguises as a Friesland 
peasant and his mother. They had some jewels of value 
concealed round their persons ; but their ready money was 
all spent before I saw them ; and Clement had been unwilling 
to leave his mother, even for the time necessary to ascertain 
the best mode of disposing of the diamonds. For, overcome 
with distress of mind and bodily fatigue, she had reached 
London only to take to her bed in a sort of low, nervous 
fever, in which her chief and only idea seemed to be that 
Clement was about to be taken from her to some prison or 

66 


My Lady Ludlow 

other; and if he were out of her sight, though but for a 
minute, she cried like a child, and could not be pacified or 
comforted. The landlady was a kind, good woman, and 
though she but half understood the case, she was truly sorry 
for them, as foreigners, and the mother sick in a strange 
land. 

“ I sent her forwards to request permission for my 
entrance. In a moment I saw Clement — a tall, elegant 
young man, in a curious dress of coarse cloth, standing at 
the open door of a room, and evidently — even before he 
accosted me — striving to soothe the terrors of his mother 
inside. I went towards him, and would have taken his 
hand, but he bent down and kissed mine. 

“ ‘ May I come in, madame ? ’ I asked, looking at the 
poor sick lady, lying in the dark, dingy bed, her head propped 
up on coarse and dirty pillows, and gazing with affrighted 
eyes at all that was going on. 

“ ‘ Clement ! Clement ! come to me ! * she cried ; and 
when he went to the bedside she turned on one side, 
and took his hand in both of hers, and began stroking it, 
and looking up in his face. I could scarce keep back my 
tears. 

“ He stood there quite still, except that from time to time 
he spoke to her in a low tone. At last I advanced into the 
room, so that I could talk to him, without renewing her 
alarm. I asked for the doctor’s address ; for I had heard 
that they had called in some one, at their landlady’s recom- 
mendation ; but I could hardly understand Clement’s broken 
English, and mispronunciation of our proper names, and 
was obliged to apply to the woman herself. I could not say 
much to Clement, for his attention was perpetually needed 
by his mother, who never seemed to perceive that I was 
there. But I told him not to fear, however long I might 
be away, for that I would return before night ; and, bidding 
the woman take charge of all the heterogeneous things the 
housekeeper had put up, and leaving one of my men in the 
house, who could understand a few words of French, with 

67 


My Lady Ludlow 

directions that he was to hold himself at Madame de Crequy’s 
orders until I sent or gave him fresh commands, I drove 
off to the doctor’s. What I wanted was his permission to 
remove Madame de Crequy to my own house, and to learn 
how it best could be done ; for I saw that every movement 
in the room, every sound except Clement’s voice, brought on 
a fresh access of trembling and nervous agitation. 

“ The doctor was, I should think, a clever man ; but he 
had that kind of abrupt manner which people get who have 
much to do with the lower orders. 

“ I told him the story of his patient, the interest I had 
in her, and the wish I entertained of removing her to my 
own house. 

“ ‘ It can’t be done,’ said he. ‘ Any change will kill her.’ 

“ ‘ But it must be done,’ I replied. ‘ And it shall not 
kill her.’ 

“ ‘ Then I have nothing more to say,’ said he, turning 
away from the carriage door, and making as though he 
would go back into the house. 

“ ‘ Stop a moment. You must help me ; and, if you do, 
you shall have reason to be glad, for I will give you fifty 
pounds down with pleasure. If you won’t do it, another 
shall.’ 

“ He looked at me, then (furtively) at the carriage, 
hesitated, and then said—* You do not mind expense 
apparently. I suppose you are a rich lady of quality. 
Such folks will not stick at such trifles as the life or death 
of a sick woman to get their own way. I suppose I must 
e’en help you, for if I don’t, another will.’ 

“ I did not mind what he said, so that he would assist 
me. I was pretty sure that she was in a state to require 
opiates ; and I had not forgotten Christopher Sly, you may 
be sure ; so I told him what I had in my head. That in the 
dead of night— the quiet time in the streets — she should be 
carried in a hospital litter, softly and warmly covered over, 
from the Leicester Square lodging-house to rooms that I 
would have in perfect readiness for her. As I planned, so 

68 


My Lady Ludlow 

it was done. I let Clement know, by a note, of my design. 

I had all prepared at home, and we walked about my house 
as though shod with velvet, while the porter watched at the 
open door. At last, through the darkness, I saw the lanterns 
carried by my men, who were leading the little procession. 
The litter looked like a hearse; on one side walked the 
doctor, on the other Clement ; they came softly and swiftly 
along. I could not try any farther experiment ; we dared not 
change her clothes ; she was laid in the bed in the landlady’s 
coarse night-gear, and covered over warmly, and left in th£ 
shaded, scented room, with a nurse and the doctor watching 
by her, while I led Clement to the dressing-room adjoining^ 
in which I had had a bed placed for him. Farther than 
that he would not go ; and there I had refreshments brought. 
Meanwhile, he had shown his gratitude by every possible 
action (for we none of us dared to speak) : he had kneeled 
at my feet, and kissed my hand, and left it wet with his 
tears. He had thrown up his arms to heaven, and prayed 
earnestly, as I could see by the movement of his lips. I 
allowed him to relieve himself by these dumb expressions, 
if I may so call them — and then I left him, and went to 
my own rooms to sit up for my lord, and tell him what 
I had done. 

“ Of course, it was all right ; and neither my lord nor 
I could sleep for wondering how Madame de Crequy would 
bear her awakening. I had engaged the doctor, to whose 
face and voice she was accustomed, to remain with her all 
night ; the nurse was experienced, and Clement was within 
call. But it was with the greatest relief that I heard from 
my own woman, when she brought me my chocolate, that 
Madame de Crequy (Monsieur had said) had awakened more 
tranquil than she had been for many days. To be sure, the 
whole aspect of the bed-chamber must have been more 
familiar to her than the miserable place where I had found 
her, and she must have intuitively felt herself among friends. 

“ My lord was scandalised at Clement’s dress, which, 
after the first moment of seeing him, I had forgotten, in 

69 


My Lady Ludlow 

thinking of other things, and for which I had not prepared 
Lord Ludlow. He sent for his own tailor, and bade him 
bring patterns of stuffs, and engage his men to work night 
and day till Clement could appear as became his rank. In 
short, in a few days so much of the traces of their flight 
were removed, that we had almost forgotten the terrible 
causes of it, and rather felt as if they had come on a visit 
to us than that they had been compelled to fly their country. 
Their diamonds, too, were sold well by my lord’s agents, 
though the London shops were stocked with jewellery, and 
such portable values, some of rare and curious fashion, which 
were sold for half their real value by emigrants who could 
not afford to wait. Madame de Cr6quy was recovering her 
health, although her strength was sadly gone, and she would 
never be equal to such another flight as the perilous one 
which she had gone through, and to which she could not 
bear the slightest reference. For some time things continued 
in this state ; — the De Crequys still our honoured visitors — 
many houses besides our own, even among our own friends, 
open to receive the poor flying nobility of France, driven 
from their country by the brutal republicans, and every 
freshly-arrived emigrant bringing new tales of horror, as if 
these revolutionists were drunk with blood, and mad to 
devise new atrocities. One day, Clement — I should tell 
you he had been presented to our good King George and 
the sweet Queen, and they had accosted him most graciously, 
and his beauty and elegance, and some of the circumstances 
attendant on his flight, made him be received in the world 
quite like a hero of romance ; he might have been on intimate 
terms in many a distinguished house, had he cared to visit 
much ; but he accompanied my lord and me with an air of 
indifference and languor, which I sometimes fancied made 
him all the more sought after; Monkshaven (that was the 
title my eldest son bore) tried in vain to interest him in 
all young men’s sports. But no 1 it was the same through 
all. His mother took far more interest in the on-dits of the 
London world, into which she was far too great an invalid 

70 


My Lady Ludlow 

to venture, than he did in the absolute events themselves, 
in which he might have been an actor. One day, as I was 
saying, an old Frenchman of a humble class presented 
himself to our servants, several of whom understood French ; 
and through Medlicott, I learnt that he was in some way 
connected with the De Crequys; not with their Paris life, 
but I fancy he had been intendant of their estates in the 
country — estates which were more useful as hunting-grounds 
than as adding to their income. However there was the 
old man ; and with him, wrapped round his person, he had 
brought the long parchment rolls, and deeds relating to their 
property. These he would deliver up to none but Monsieur 
de Crequy, the rightful owner; and Clement was out with 
Monkshaven, so the old man waited ; and when Clement 
came in, I told him of the steward’s arrival, and how he 
had been cared for by my people. Clement went directly 
to see him. He was a long time away, and I was waiting 
for him to drive out with me, for some purpose or other, 
I scarce know what, but I remember I was tired of waiting, 
and was just in the act of ringing the bell to desire that he 
might be reminded of his engagement with me, when he 
came in, his face as white as the powder in his hair, his 
beautiful eyes dilated with horror. I saw that he had heard 
something that touched him even more closely than the 
usual tales which every fresh emigrant brought. 

“ ‘ What is it, Clement ? ’ I asked. 

“ He clasped his hands, and looked as though he tried to 
speak, but could not bring out the words. 

“ ‘ They have guillotined my uncle ! ’ said he at last. 
Now, I knew that there was a Count de Crequy ; but I had 
always understood that the elder branch held very little 
communication with him ; in fact, that he was a vaurien of 
some kind, and rather a disgrace than otherwise to the family. 
So, perhaps, I was hard-hearted ; but I was a little surprised 
at this excess of emotion, till I saw that peculiar look in his 
eyes that many people have when there is more terror in 
their hearts than they dare put into words. He wanted 

7 * 


My Lady Ludlow 

me to understand something without his saying it ; but how 
could I ? I had never heard of a Mademoiselle de Crequy. 

“ ‘ Yirginie ! ’ at last he uttered. In an instant I under- 
stood it all, and remembered that, if Urian had lived, he too 
might have been in love. 

“ ‘ Your uncle’s daughter ? ’ I inquired. 

“ ‘ My cousin,’ he replied. 

“ I did not say, ‘ your betrothed,’ but I had no doubt of 
it. I was mistaken, however. 

“ ‘ Oh, madame ! ’ he continued, ‘ her mother died long 
ago — her father now — and she is in daily fear — alone, 
deserted ’ 

“ ‘ Is she in the Abbaye ? ’ asked I. 

“ * No ! she is in hiding with the widow of her father’s old 
concierge. Any day they may search the house for aristo- 
crats. They are seeking them everywhere. Then, not her 
life alone, but that of the old woman, her hostess, is sacrificed. 
The old woman knows this, and trembles with fear. Even if 
she is brave enough to be faithful, her fears would betray her, 
should the house be searched. Yet, there is no one to help 
Yirginie to escape. She is alone in Paris.’ 

“ I saw what was in his mind. He was fretting and 
chafing to go to his cousin’s assistance ; but the thought of 
his mother restrained him. I would not have kept back 
Urian from such an errand at such a time. How should I 
restrain him ? And yet, perhaps, I did wrong in not urging 
the chances of danger more. Still, if it was danger to him, 
was it not the same or even greater danger to her ? — for the 
French spared neither age nor sex in those wicked days of 
terror. So I rather fell in with his wish, and encouraged him 
to think how best and most prudently it might be fulfilled ; 
never doubting, as I have said, that he and his cousin were 
troth-plighted. 

“ But when I went to Madame de Crequy — after he had 
imparted his, or rather our plan to her — I found out my 
mistake. She, who was in general too feeble to walk across 
the room save slowly, and with a stick, was going from end 

72 


My Lady Ludlow 

to end with quick, tottering steps ; and, if now and then she 
sank upon a chair, it seemed as if she could not rest, for she 
was up again in a moment, pacing along, wringing her hands, 
and speaking rapidly to herself. When she saw me, she 
stopped : ‘ Madame,’ she said, ‘ you have lost your own boy. 
You might have left me mine.’ 

“ I was so astonished I hardly knew what to say. I 
had spoken to Clement as if his mother’s consent were secure 
(as I had felt my own would have been if Urian had been 
alive to ask it). Of course, both he and I knew that his 
mother’s consent must be asked and obtained, before he 
could leave her to go on such an undertaking ; but, somehow, 
my blood always rose at the sight or sound of danger ; per- 
haps, because my life had been so peaceful. Poor Madame 
de Crequy ! it was otherwise with her ; she despaired while 
I hoped and Clement trusted. 

“ ‘ Dear Madame de Crequy,’ said I, ‘ he will return safely 
to us ; every precaution shall be taken, that either he or 
you, or my lord, or Monkshaven can think of ; but he cannot 
leave a girl — his nearest relation save you — his betrothed, is 
she not ? * 

“ * His betrothed ! ’ cried she, now at the utmost pitch of 
her . excitement. ‘ Virginie betrothed to Clement ? — no ! 
thank Heaven, not so bad as that ! Yet it might have been. 
But mademoiselle scorned my son ! She would have nothing 
to do with him. Now is the time for him to have nothing to 
do with her ! ’ 

“ Clement had entered at the door behind his mother as 
she thus spoke. His face was set and pale, till it looked as 
grey and immovable as if it had been carved in stone. He 
came forward and stood before his mother. She stopped her 
walk, threw back her haughty head, and the two looked each 
other steadily in the face. After a minute or two in this 
attitude, her proud and resolute gaze never flinching or 
wavering, he went down upon one knee, and, taking her 
hand — her hard, stony hand, which never closed on his, but 
remained straight and stiff — 

73 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ ‘ Mother,’ he pleaded, ‘ withdraw your prohibition. Let 
me go ! ’ 

“ ‘ What were her words ? ’ Madame de Crequy replied 
slowly, as if forcing her memory to the extreme of accuracy. 
‘ “ My cousin,” she said, “ when I marry, I marry a man, 
not a petit-maitre. I marry a man who, whatever his 
rank may be, will add dignity to the human race by his 
virtues, and not be content to live in an effeminate court on 
the traditions of past grandeur.” She borrowed her words 
from the infamous Jean- Jacques Rousseau, the friend of her 
scarce less infamous father, — nay ! I will say it — if not her 
words, she borrowed her principles. And my son to request 
her to marry him ! ’ 

“ ‘ It was my father’s written wish,’ said Clement. 

“ ‘ But did you not love her ? You plead your father’s 
words — words written twelve years before — and as if that 
were your reason for being indifferent to my dislike to the 
alliance. But you requested her to marry you — and 
she refused you with insolent contempt; and now you 
are ready to leave me — leave me desolate in a foreign 
land ’ 

“ ‘ Desolate ! my mother ! and the Countess Ludlow 
stands there ! ’ 

“ ‘ Pardon, madame ! But all the earth, though it were 
full of kind hearts, is but a desolation and a desert place to a 
mother when her only child is absent. And you, Clement, 
would leave me for this Yirginie — this degenerate De Crequy, 
tainted with the atheism of the Encyclopedistes ! She is only 
reaping some of the fruit of the harvest whereof her friends 
have sown the seed. Let her alone ! Doubtless she has 
friends — it may be lovers — among these demons, who, under 
the cry of liberty, commit every license. Let her alone, 
Clement ! She refused you with scorn : be too proud to 
notice her now.’ 

“ ‘ Mother, I cannot think of myself ; only of her.’ 

“ * Think of me, then ! I, your mother, forbid you 

to go.’ 


74 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ Clement bowed low, and went out of the room instantly, 
as one blinded. She saw his groping movement, and, for an 
instant, I think, her heart was touched. But she turned to 
me, and tried to exculpate her past violence by dilating upon 
her wrongs, and they certainly were many. The Count, her 
husband’s younger brother, had invariably tried to make 
mischief between husband and wife. He had been the 
cleverer man of the two, and had possessed extraordinary 
influence over her husband. She suspected him of having 
instigated that clause in her husband’s will, by which the 
Marquis expressed his wish for the marriage of the cousins. 
The Count had had some interest in the management of the 
De Crequy property during her son’s minority. Indeed, 
I remembered then, that it was through Count de Crequy 
that Lord Ludlow had first heard of the apartment which 
we afterwards took in the H )tel de Crequy ; and then the 
recollection of a past feeling came distinctly out of the mist, 
as it were ; and I called to mind how, when we first took 
up our abode in the Hotel de Crequy, both Lord Ludlow 
and I imagined that the arrangement was displeasing to our 
hostess ; and how it had taken us a considerable time before 
we had been able to establish relations of friendship with 
her. Years after our visit, she began to suspect that Clement 
(whom she could not forbid to visit at his uncle’s house, 
considering the terms on which his father had been with 
his brother; though she herself never set foot over the 
Count de Crequy’ s threshold) was attaching himself to 
mademoiselle, his cousin; and she made cautious inquiries 
as to the appearance, character, and disposition of the 
young lady. Mademoiselle was not handsome, they said : 
but of a fine figure, and generally considered as having a 
very noble and attractive presence. In character she was 
daring and wilful (said one set) ; original and independent 
(said another). She was much indulged by her father, who 
had given her something of a man’s education, and selected 
for her intimate friend a young lady below her in rank, one 
of the Bureaucratie, a Mademoiselle Necker, daughter of 

75 


My Lady Ludlow 

the Minister of Finance. Mademoiselle de Crequy was thus 
introduced into all the free-thinking salons of Paris ; among 
people who were always full of plans for subverting society. 

‘ And did Clement affect such people ? * Madame de Crequy 
had asked with some anxiety. No ! Monsieur de Crequy 
had neither eyes nor ears, nor thought, for anything but his 
cousin, while she was by. And she ? She hardly took 
notice of his devotion, so evident to every one else. The 
proud creature ! But perhaps that was her haughty way 
of concealing what she felt. And so Madame de Crequy 
listened, and questioned, and learnt nothing decided, until 
one day she surprised Clement with the note in his hand, 
of which she remembered the stinging words so well, in 
which Yirginie had said, in reply to a proposal Clement had 
sent her through her father, that ‘ When she married, she 
married a man, not a petit-maitre.’ 

“ Clement was justly indignant at the insulting nature of 
the answer Yirginie had sent to a proposal, respectful in its 
tone, and which was, after all, but the cool, hardened lava 
over a burning heart. He acquiesced in his mother’s desire, 
that he should not again present himself in his uncle’s 
salons ; but he did not forget Yirginie, though he never 
mentioned her name. 

“ Madame de Crequy and her son were among the 
earliest proscrits, as they were of the strongest possible 
royalists, and aristocrats, as it was the custom of the horrid 
Sansculottes to term those who adhered to the habits of 
expression and action in which it was their pride to have 
been educated. They had left Paris some weeks before they 
had arrived in England, and Clement’s belief at the time of 
quitting the Hotel de Crequy had certainly been, that his 
uncle was not merely safe, but rather a popular man with 
the party in power. And, as all communication having 
relation to private individuals of a reliable kind was inter- 
cepted, Monsieur de Crequy had felt but little anxiety for 
his uncle and cousin, in comparison with what he did for 
many other friends of very different opinions in politics, 

76 


My Lady Ludlow 

until the day when he was stunned by the fatal informa- 
tion that even his progressive uncle was guillotined, and 
learnt, that his cousin was imprisoned by the license of the 
mob, whose rights (as she called them) she was always 
advocating. 

“ When I had heard all this story, I confess I lost in 
sympathy for Clement what I gained for his mother. 
Yirginie’s life did not seem to me worth the risk that 
Clement’s would run. But when I saw him— sad, depressed, 
nay, hopeless — going about like one oppressed by a heavy 
dream which he cannot shake off ; caring neither to eat, 
drink, nor sleep, yet bearing all with silent dignity, and 
even trying to force a poor, faint smile when he caught my 
anxious eyes : I turned round again and wondered how 
Madame de Crequy could resist this mute pleading of her 
son’s altered appearance. As for my Lord Ludlow and 
Monkshaven, as soon as they understood the case, they 
were indignant that any mother should attempt to keep a 
son out of honourable danger ; and it was honourable, and 
a clear duty (according to them), to try to save the life of a 
helpless orphan girl, his next-of-kin. None but a French- 
man, said my lord, would hold himself bound by an old 
woman’s whimsies and fears, even though she were his 
mother. As it was, he was chafing himself to death under 

the restraint. If he went, to be sure, the wretches 

might make an end of him, as they had done of many a fine 
fellow ; but my lord would take heavy odds, that, instead of 
being guillotined, he would save the girl, and bring her safe 
to England, just desperately in love with her preserver, and 
then we would have a jolly wedding down at Monkshaven. 
My lord repeated his opinion so often that it became a 
certain prophecy in his mind of what was to take place ; 
and, one day, seeing Clement look even paler and thinner 
than he had ever done before, he sent a message to Madame 
de Crequy, requesting permission to speak to her in private. 

“ * For, by George ! ’ said he, ‘ she shall hear my opinion, 
and not let that lad of hers kill himself by fretting. He’s 

77 


My Lady Ludlow 

too good for that. If he had been an English lad, he would 
have been off to his sweetheart long before this, without 
saying with your leave or by your leave; but, being a 
Frenchman, he is all for .ZEneas and filial piety — filial 
fiddlesticks ! ’ (My lord had run away to sea, when a boy, 
against his father’s consent, I am sorry to say ; and, as all 
had ended well, and he had come back to find both his 
parents alive, I do not think he was ever as much aware 
of his fault as he might have been under other circum- 
stances.) ‘ No, my lady,’ he went on, ‘ don’t come with 
me. A woman can manage a man best when he has a fit 
of obstinacy, and a man can persuade a woman out of her 
tantrums, when all her own sex, the whole army of them, 
would fail. Allow me to go alone to my tete-a-tete with 
madame.’ 

“ What he said, what passed, he never could repeat ; but 
he came back graver than he went. However, the point 
was gained ; Madame de Crequy withdrew her prohibition, 
and had given him leave to tell Clement as much. 

“ * But she is an old Cassandra,’ said he. 1 Don’t let 
the lad be much with her; her talk would destroy the 
courage of the bravest man ; she is so given over to super- 
stition.’ Something that she had said had touched a chord 
in my lord’s nature which he inherited from his Scotch 
ancestors. Long afterwards, I heard what this was. Medlicott 
told me. 

“ However, my lord shook off all fancies that told against 
the fulfilment of Clement’s wishes. All that afternoon we 
three sat together, planning; and Monkshaven passed in 
and out, executing our commissions, and preparing every- 
thing. Towards nightfall all was ready for Clement’s start 
on his journey towards the coast. 

“ Madame had declined seeing any of us since my lord’s 
stormy interview with her. She sent word that she was 
fatigued, and desired repose. But, of course, before Clement 
set off, he was bound to wish her farewell, and to ask for 
her blessing. In order to avoid an agitating conversation 

78 


My Lady Ludlow 

between mother and son, my lord and I resolved to be 
present at the interview. Clement was already in his 
travelling-dress, that of a Norman fisherman, which Monk- 
shaven had, with infinite trouble, discovered in the possession 
of one of the emigres who thronged London, and who had 
made his escape from the shores of France in this disguise. 
Clement’s plan was to go down to the coast of Sussex, and 
get some of the fishing or smuggling boats to take him 
across to the French coast near Dieppe. There again he 
would have to change his dress. Oh, it was so well planned ! 
His mother was startled by his disguise (of which we had 
not thought to forewarn her) as he entered her apartment. 
And either that, or the being suddenly roused from the 
heavy slumber into which she was apt to fall when she 
was left alone, gave her manner an air of wildness that 
was almost like insanity. 

“‘Go, go!’ she said to him, almost pushing him away 
as he knelt to kiss her hand. ‘Virginie is beckoning to 
you, but you don’t see what kind of a bed it is ’ 

“ ‘ Clement, make haste ! ’ said my lord, in a hurried 
manner, as if to interrupt madame. ‘ The time is later 
than I thought, and you must not miss the morning’s tide. 
Bid your mother good-bye at once, and let us be off.’ For 
my lord and Monkshaven were to ride with him to an inn 
near the shore, from whence he was to walk to his destina- 
tion. My lord almost took him by the arm to pull him 
away; and they were gone, and I was left alone with 
Madame de Crequy. When she heard the horses’ feet, 
she seemed to find out the truth, as if for the first time. 
She set her teeth together. ‘ He has left me for her ! ’ she 
almost screamed. ‘ Left me for her ! ’ she kept muttering ; 
and then, as the wild look came back into her eyes, she 
said, almost with exultation, ‘ But I did not give him my 
blessing ! * 


79 


My Lady Ludlow 


CHAPTER VI 

“All night Madame de Crequy raved in delirium. If 1 
could, I would have sent for Clement back again. I did 
send off one man, but I suppose my directions were con- 
fused, or they were wrong, for he came back after my lord’s 
return, on the following afternoon. By this time Madame 
de Crequy was quieter; she was, indeed, asleep from ex- 
haustion when Lord Ludlow and Monkshaven came in. 
They were in high spirits, and their hopefulness brought 
me round to a less dispirited state. All had gone well: 
they had accompanied Clement on foot along the shore, 
until they had met with a lugger, which my lord had hailed 
in good nautical language. The captain had responded to 
these freemason terms by sending a boat to pick up his 
passenger, and by an invitation to breakfast sent through a 
speaking-trumpet. Monkshaven did not approve of either 
the meal or the company, and had returned to the inn ; but 
my lord had gone with Clement, and breakfasted on board, 
upon grog, biscuit, fresh-caught fish — ‘ the best breakfast 
he ever ate,’ he said ; but that was probably owing to the 
appetite his night’s ride had given him. However, his good 
fellowship had evidently won the captain’s heart, and 
Clement had set sail under the best auspices. It was agreed 
that I should tell all this to Madame de Crequy, if she 
inquired; otherwise, it would be wiser not to renew her 
agitation by alluding to her son’s journey. 

“ I sat with her constantly for many days ; but she 
never spoke of Clement. She forced herself to talk of the 
little occurrences of Parisian society in former days ; she 
tried to be conversational and agreeable, and to betray no 
anxiety or even interest in the object of Clement’s journey; 
and, as far as unremitting efforts could go, she succeeded. 
But the tones of her voice were sharp and yet piteous, as 
if she were in constant pain ; and the glance of her eye 

*8o 


My Lady Ludlow 

hurried and fearful, as if she dared not let it rest on any 
object. 

“In a week we heard of Clement’s safe arrival on the 
French coast. He sent a letter to this effect by the captain 
of the smuggler, when the latter returned. We hoped to 
hear again ; but week after week elapsed, and there was 
no news of Clement. I had told Lord Ludlow, in Madame 
de Crequy’s presence, as he and I had arranged, of the 
note I had received from her son, informing us of his land- 
ing in France. She heard, but she took no notice, and 
evidently began to wonder that we did not mention any 
further intelligence of him in the same manner before her ; 
and daily I began to fear that her pride would give way, 
and that she would supplicate for news before I had any 
to give her. 

“ One morning, on my awakening, my maid told me 
that Madame de Crequy had passed a wretched night, and 
had bidden Medlicott (whom, as understanding French, and 
speaking it pretty well, though with that horrid German 
accent, I had put about her) request that I would go to 
madame’s room as soon as I was dressed. 

“ I knew what was coming, and I trembled all the time 
they were doing my hair, and otherwise arranging me. 
I was not encouraged by my lord’s speeches. He had 
heard the message, and kept declaring that he would rather 
be shot than have to tell her that there was no news of 
her son; and yet he said, every now and then, when I 
was at the lowest pitch of uneasiness, that he never ex- 
pected to hear again : that some day soon we should see 
him walking in and introducing Mademoiselle de Crequy 
to us. 

“ However, at last I was ready, and go I must. 

“ Her eyes were fixed on the door by which I entered. 

I went up to the bedside. She was not rouged, — she had 
left it off now for several days, — she no longer attempted 
to keep up the vain show of not feeling, and loving, and 
fearing. 


81 


G 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ For a moment or two she did not speak, and I was 
glad of the respite. 

“ ‘ Clement ? ’ she said at length, covering her mouth 
with a handkerchief the minute she had spoken, that I 
might not see it quiver. 

‘“There has been no news since the first letter, saying 
how well the voyage was performed, and how safely he had 
landed — near Dieppe, you know,’ I replied as cheerfully as 
possible. ‘ My lord does not expect that we shall have 
another letter; he thinks that we shall see him soon.’ 

“ There was no answer. As I looked, uncertain whether 
to do or say more, she slowly turned herself in bed, and lay 
with her face to the wall ; and, as if that did not shut out 
the light of day and the busy, happy world enough, she put 
out her trembling hands, and covered her face with her hand- 
kerchief. There was no violence : hardly any sound. 

“ I told her what my lord had said about Clement’s 
coming in some day, and taking us all by surprise. I did 
not believe it myself, but it was just possible — and I had 
nothing else to say. Pity, to one who was striving so hard 
to conceal her feelings, would have been impertinent. She 
let me talk; but she did not reply. She knew that my 
words were vain and idle, and had no root in my belief, as 
well as I did myself. 

“I was very thankful when Medlicott came in with 
madame’s breakfast, and gave me an excuse for leaving. 

“ But I think that conversation made me feel more 
anxious and impatient than ever. I felt almost pledged to 
Madame de Crequy for the fulfilment of the vision I had held 
out. She had taken entirely to her bed by this time : not 
from illness, but because she had no hope within her to stir 
her up to the effort of dressing. In the same way she hardly 
cared for food. She had no appetite — why eat to prolong a 
life of despa ir ? But she let Medlicott feed her, sooner than 
take the trouble of resisting. 

“ And so it went on — for weeks, months — I could hardly 
count the time, it seemed so long. Medlicott told me she 

82 


My Lady Ludlow 

noticed a preternatural sensitiveness of ear in Madame de 
Crequy, induced by the habit of listening silently for the 
slightest unusual sound in the house. Medlicott was always 
a minute watcher of any one whom she cared about ; and, 
one day, she made me notice by a sign madame’s acuteness 
of hearing, although the quick expectation was but evinced 
for a moment in the turn of the eye, the hushed breath — 
and then, when the unusual footstep turned into my lord’s 
apartments, the soft quivering sigh and the closed eyelids. 

“ At length the intendant of the De Crequy estates — the 
old man, you will remember, whose information respecting 
Virginie de Crequy first gave Clement the desire to return to 
Paris — came to St. James’s Square, and begged to speak to 
me. I made haste to go down to him in the housekeeper’s 
room, sooner than that he should be ushered into mine, for 
fear of madame hearing any sound. 

“ The old man stood — I see him now — with his hat held 
before him in both his hands ; he slowly bowed till his face 
touched it when I came in. Such long excess of courtesy 
augured ill. He waited for me to speak. 

“ < Have you any intelligence ? ’ I inquired. He had 
been often to the house before, to ask if we had received any 
news ; and once or twice I had seen him, but this was the 
first time he had begged to see me. 

“ ‘ Yes, madame,’ he replied, still standing with his head 
bent down, like a child in disgrace. 

“ ‘ And it is bad ! ’ I exclaimed. 

“ < It is bad.’ For a moment I was angry at the cold 
tone in which my words were echoed; but directly after- 
wards I saw the large, slow, heavy tears of age falling down 
the old man’s cheeks, and on to the sleeves of his poor, thread- 
bare coat. 

“ I asked him how he had heard it : it seemed as though 
I could not all at once bear to hear what it was. He told 
me that the night before, in crossing Long Acre, he had 
stumbled upon an old acquaintance of his ; one who, like 
himself, had been dependent upon the De Crequy family, 

83 


My Lady Ludlow 

but had managed their Paris affairs, while Flechier had taken 
charge of their estates in the country. Both were now 
emigrants, and living on the proceeds of such small avail- 
able talents as they possessed. Flechier, as I knew, earned 
a very fair livelihood by going about to dress salads for 
dinner parties. His compatriot, Le Febvre, had begun to 
give a few lessons as a dancing-master. One of them took 
the other home to his lodgings ; and there, when their most 
immediate personal adventures had been hastily talked over, 
came the inquiry from Flechier as to Monsier de Crequy. 

“ ‘ Clement was dead— guillotined. Yirginie was dead — 
guillotined.’ 

“ When Flechier had told me thus much, he could not 
speak for sobbing ; and I, myself, could hardly tell how to 
restrain my tears sufficiently, until I could go to my own 
room, and be at liberty to give way. He asked my leave 
to bring in his friend Le Febvre, who was walking in the 
square, awaiting a possible summons to tell his story. I 
heard afterwards a good many details, which filled up the 
account, and made me feel — which brings me back to the 
point I started from — how unfit the lower orders are for 
being trusted indiscriminately with the dangerous powers of 
education. I have made a long preamble, but now I am 
coming to the moral of my story.” 

My lady was trying to shake off the emotion which she 
evidently felt in recurring to this sad history of Monsieur 
de Crequy’s death. She came behind me and arranged my 
pillows, and then, seeing I had been crying — for, indeed, I 
was weak-spirited at the time, and a little served to unloose 
my tears — she stooped down, and kissed my forehead, and 
said “ Poor child ! ” almost as if she thanked me for feeling 
that old grief of hers. 

“ Being once in France, it was no difficult thing for 
Clement to get into Paris. The difficulty in those days was 
to leave, not to enter. He came in dressed as a Norman 
peasant, in charge of a load of fruit and vegetables, with 
which one of the Seine barges was freighted. He worked 

84 


My Lady Ludlow 

hard with his companions in landing and arranging their 
produce on the quays; and then, when they dispersed to 
get their breakfasts at some of the estaminets near the old 
March6 aux Fleurs, he sauntered up a street which con- 
ducted him, by many an odd turn, through the Quartier 
Latin to a horrid back-alley, leading out of the Eue l’Ecole 
de Medecine : some atrocious place, as I have heard, not 
far from the shadow of that terrible Abbaye, where so many 
of the best blood of France awaited their deaths. But here 
some old man lived, on whose fidelity Clement thought that 
he might rely. I am not sure if he had not been gardener 
in those very gardens behind the Hotel Crequy where Clement 
and Urian used to play together years before. But, what- 
ever the old man’s dwelling might be, Clement was only too 
glad to reach it, you may be sure. He had been kept in 
Normandy, in all sorts of disguises, for many days after 
landing in Dieppe, through the difficulty of entering Paris 
unsuspected by the many ruffians who were always on the 
look-out for aristocrats. 

“ The old gardener was, I believe, both faithful and tried, 
and sheltered Clement in his garret as well as might be. 
Before he could stir out, it was necessary to procure a fresh 
disguise, and one more in character with an inhabitant of 
Paris than that of a Norman carter was procured ; and, after 
waiting indoors for one or two days, to see if any suspicion 
was excited, Clement set off to discover Virginie. 

“ He found her at the old concierge’s dwelling. Madame 
Babette was the name of this woman, who must have been 
a less faithful — or rather, perhaps, I should say, a more 
interested — friend to her guest than the old gardener Jaques 
was to Clement. 

“ I have seen a miniature of Virginie, which a French 
lady of quality happened to have in her possession at the 
time of her flight from Paris, and which she brought with 
her to England unwittingly ; for it belonged to the Count de 
Cr6quy, with whom she was slightly acquainted. I should 
fancy from it, that Virginie was taller and of a more powerful 

85 


My Lady Ludlow 

figure for a woman than her cousin Clement was for a man. 
Her dark-brown hair was arranged in short curls— the way 
of dressing the hair announced the politics of the individual 
in those days, just as patches did in my grandmother’s time ; 
and Yirginie’s hair was not to my taste, or according to my 
principles : it was too classical. Her large, black eyes 
looked out at you steadily. One cannot judge of the shape 
of a nose from a full-faced miniature, but the nostrils were 
clearly cut and largely opened. I do not fancy her nose 
could have been pretty ; but her mouth had a character all 
its own, and which would, I think, have redeemed a plainer 
face. It was wide, and deep set into the cheeks at the 
corners; the upper lip was very much arched, and hardly 
closed over the teeth ; so that the whole face looked (from 
the serious, intent look in the eyes, and the sweet intelligence 
of the mouth) as if she were listening eagerly to something 
to which her answer was quite ready, and would come out 
of those red, opening bps as soon as ever you had done 
speaking ; and you longed to know what she would say. 

“ Well : this Yirginie de Crequy was living with Madame 
Babette in the conciergerie of an old French inn, somewhere 
to the north of Paris, so, far enough from Clement’s refuge. 
The inn had been frequented by farmers from Brittany and 
such kind of people, in the days when that sort of intercourse 
went on between Paris and the provinces, which had nearly 
stopped now. Few Bretons came near it now, and the inn 
had fallen into the hands of Madame Babette ’s brother, as 
payment for a bad wine debt of the last proprietor. He put 
his sister and her child in, to keep it open, as it were, and 
sent all the people he could to occupy the half-furnished 
rooms of the house. They paid Babette for their lodging 
every morning as they went out to breakfast, and returned 
or not as they chose, at night. Every three days, the wine- 
merchant or his son came to Madame Babette, and she 
accounted to them for the money she had received. She 
and her child occupied the porter’s office (in which the lad 
slept at nights) and a little miserable bedroom which opened 

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My Lady Ludlow 

out of it, and received all the light and air that was admitted 
through the door of communication, which was half glass. 
Madame Babette must have had a kind of attachment for 
the De Crequys — her De Crequys, you understand — Yirginie’s 
father, the Count; for, at some risk to herself, she had 
warned both him and his daughter of the danger impending 
over them. But he, infatuated, would not believe that his 
dear Human Race could ever do him harm ; and, as long as 
he did not fear, Yirginie was not afraid. It was by some 
ruse, the nature of which I never heard, that Madame 
Babette induced Yirginie to come to her abode at the very 
hour in which the Count had been recognised in the streets, 
and hurried off to the Lanterne. It was after Babette had 
got her there, safe shut up in the little back den, that she 
told her what had befallen her father. From that day, 
Yirginie had never stirred out of the gates, or crossed the 
threshold of the porter’s lodge. I do not say that Madame 
Babette was tired of her continual presence, or regretted the 
impulse which made her rush to the De Crequy’s well-known 
house — after being compelled to form one of the mad crowds 
that saw the Count de Crequy seized and hung — and hurry 
his daughter out, through alleys and backways, until at 
length she had the orphan safe in her own dark sleeping- 
room, and could tell her tale of horror : but Madame Babette 
was poorly paid for her porter’s work by her avaricious 
brother ; and it was hard enough to find food for herself and 
her growing boy ; and, though the poor girl ate little enough, 
I dare say, yet there seemed no end to the burthen that 
Madame Babette had imposed upon herself ; the De Crequys 
were plundered, ruined, had become an extinct race, all but 
a lonely friendless girl, in broken health and spirits ; and, 
though she lent no positive encouragement to his suit, yet, 
at the time when Clement re-appeared in Paris, Madame 
Babette was beginning to think that Virginie might do worse 
than encourage the attentions of Monsieur Morin Fils, her 
nephew, and the wine-merchant’s son. Of course, he and 
his father had the entree into the conciergerie of the hotel 

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My Lady Ludlow 

that belonged to them, in right of being both proprietors and 
relations. The son, Morin, had seen Yirginie in this manner. 
He was fully aware that she was far above him in rank, and 
guessed from her whole aspect that she had lost her natural 
protectors by the terrible guillotine ; but he did not know her 
exact name or station, nor could he persuade his aunt to tell 
him. However, he fell head over ears in love with her, 
whether she were princess or peasant ; and, though at first 
there was something about her which made his passionate 
love conceal itself with shy, awkward reserve, and then 
made it only appear in the guise of deep, respectful devotion ; 
yet, by-and-by — by the same process of reasoning, I 
suppose, that his aunt had gone through even before him — 
Jean Morin began to let Hope oust Despair from his heart. 
Sometimes he thought — perhaps years hence, that solitary, 
friendless lady, pent up in squalor, might turn to him as to 
a friend and comforter — and then— and then . Mean- 

while Jean Morin was most attentive to his aunt, whom he 
had rather slighted before. He would linger over the 
accounts ; would bring her little presents ; and, above all, he 
made a pet and favourite of Pierre, the little cousin, who 
could tell him about all the ways of going on of Mam’selle 
Cannes, as Yirginie was called. Pierre was thoroughly 
aware of the drift and cause of his cousin’s inquiries ; and 
was his ardent partisan, as I have heard, even before Jean 
Morin had exactly acknowledged his wishes to himself. 

“It must have required some patience and diplomacy, 
before Clement de Crequy found out the exact place where 
his cousin was hidden. The old gardener took the cause 
very much to heart ; as, judging from my recollections, I 
imagine he would have forwarded any fancy, however wild, 
of Monsieur Clement’s. (I will tell you afterwards how I 
came to know all these particulars so well.) 

“ After Clement’s return, on two succeeding days, from 
his dangerous search, without meeting with any good result, 
Jacques entreated Monsieur de Crequy to let him take it in 
hand. He represented that he, as gardener for the space of 

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My Lady Ludlow 

twenty years and more at the Hotel de Crequy, had a right 
to be acquainted with all the successive concierges at the 
Count’s house ; that he should not go among them as a 
stranger, but as an old friend, anxious to renew pleasant 
intercourse ; and that if the Intendant’s story, which he had 
told Monsieur de Crequy in England, was true, that made- 
moiselle was in hiding at the house of a former concierge, 
why, something relating to her would surely drop out in the 
course of conversation. So he persuaded Clement to remain 
indoors, while he set off on his round, with no apparent 
object but to gossip. 

“At night he came home, — having seen mademoiselle. 
He told Clement much of the story relating to Madame 
Babette that I have told to you. Of course, he had heard 
nothing of the ambitious hopes of Morin Fils — hardly of his 
existence, I should think. Madame Babette had received 
him kindly ; although, for some time, she had kept him 
standing in the carriage gateway outside her door. But, on 
his complaining of the draught and his rheumatism, she had 
asked him in ; first looking round with some anxiety, to see 
who was in the room behind her. No one was there when 
he entered and sat down. But, in a minute or two, a tall 
thin young lady, with great, sad eyes, and pale cheeks, came 
from the inner room, and, seeing him, retired. “It is 
Mademoiselle Cannes,” said Madame Babette, rather un- 
necessarily ; for, if he had not been on the watch for some 
sign of Mademoiselle de Crequy, he would hardly have 
noticed the entrance and withdrawal. 

“ Clement and the good old gardener were always rather 
perplexed by Madame Babette’s evident avoidance of all 
mention of the De Crequy family. If she were so much 
interested in one member as to be willing to undergo the 
pains and penalties of a domiciliary visit, it was strange that 
she never inquired after the existence of her charge’s friends 
and relations from one who might very probably have heard 
something of them. They settled that Madame Babette 
must believe that the Marquise and Clement were dead; 

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My Lady Ludlow 

and admired her for her reticence in never speaking of 
Virginie. The truth was, I suspect, that she was so desirous 
of her nephew’s success by this time, that she did not like 
letting any one into the secret of Yirginie’s whereabouts who 
might interfere with their plan. However, it was arranged 
between Clement and his humble friend, that the former, 
dressed in the peasant’s clothes in which he had entered 
Paris but smartened up in one or two particulars, as if, 
although a countryman, he had money to spare, should go 
and engage a sleeping-room in the old Breton Inn, where, 
as I told you, accommodation for the night was to be had. 
This was accordingly done, without exciting Madame 
Babette’s suspicions, for she was unacquainted with the 
Normandy accent, and consequently did not perceive the 
exaggeration of it which Monsieur de Crequy adopted in order 
to disguise his pure Parisian. But after he had for two 
nights slept in a queer dark closet, at the end of one of the 
numerous short galleries in the Hotel Duguesclin, and paid 
his money for such accommodation each morning at the 
little bureau under the window of the conciergerie, he found 
himself no nearer to his object. He stood outside in the 
gateway : Madame Babette opened a pane in her window, 
counted out the change, gave polite thanks, and shut to the 
pane with a clack, before he could ever find out what to say 
that might be the means of opening a conversation. Once 
in the streets, he was in danger from the bloodthirsty mob, 
who were ready in those days to hunt to death every pne 
who looked like a gentleman, as an aristocrat : and Clement, 
depend upon it, looked a gentleman, whatever dress he 
wore. Yet it was unwise to traverse Paris to his old friend 
the gardener’s grenier, so he had to loiter about, where I 
hardly know. Only he did leave the Hotel Duguesclin, and 
he did not go to old Jacques, and there was not another 
house in Paris open to him. At the end of two days, he had 
made out Pierre’s existence ; and he began to try to make 
friends with the lad. Pierre was too sharp and shrewd 
not to suspect something from the confused attempts at 

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My Lady Ludlow 

friendliness. It was not for nothing that the Norman farmer 
lounged in the court and doorway, and brought home 
presents of galette. Pierre accepted the galette, recipro- 
cated the civil speeches, but kept his eyes open. Once, 
returning home pretty late at night, he surprised the Nor- 
man studying the shadows on the blind, which was drawn 
down when Madame Babette’s lamp was lighted. On going 
in, he found Mademoiselle Cannes with his mother, sitting 
by the table, and helping in the family mending. 

“ Pierre was afraid that the Norman had some view upon 
the money which his mother, as concierge, collected for her 
brother. But the money was all safe next evening, when 
his cousin, Monsieur Morin Fils, came to collect it. Madame 
Babette asked her nephew to sit down, and skilfully barred 
the passage to the inner door, so that Virginie, had she been 
ever so much disposed, could not have retreated. She sat 
silently sewing. All at once the little party were startled by 
a very sweet tenor voice, just close to the street window, 
singing one of the airs out of Beaumarchais’ operas, which, 
a few years before, had been popular all over Paris. But 
after a few moments of silence, and one or two remarks, the 
talking went on again. Pierre, however, noticed an increased 
air of abstraction in Virginie, who, I suppose, was recurring 
to the last time that she had heard the song, and did not 
consider, as her cousin had hoped she would have done, 
what were the words set to the air, which he imagined she 
would remember, and which would have told her so much. 
For, only a few years before, Adam’s opera of Bichard le 
Roi had made the story of the minstrel Blondel and our 
English Coeur de Lion familiar to all the opera-going part of 
the Parisian public, and Clement had bethought him of 
establishing a communication with Virginie by some such 
means. 

“ The next night, about the same hour, the same voice 
was singing outside the window again. Pierre, who had 
been irritated by the proceeding the evening before, as it had 
diverted Virginie’s attention from his cousin, who had been 

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My Lady Ludlow 

doing his utmost to make himself agreeable, rushed out to 
the door, just as the Norman was ringing the bell to be 
admitted for the night. Pierre looked up and down the 
street ; no one else was to be seen. The next day, the 
Norman mollified him somewhat by knocking at the door of 
the conciergerie, and begging Monsieur Pierre’s acceptance 
of some knee-buckles, which had taken the country farmer’s 
fancy the day before, as he had been gazing into the shops, 
but, which, being too small for his purpose, he took the 
liberty of offering to Monsieur Pierre. Pierre, a French boy, 
inclined to foppery, was charmed, ravished by the beauty of 
the present and with monsieur’s goodness, and he began to 
adjust them to his breeches immediately, as well as he could, 
at least, in his mother’s absence. The Norman, whom Pierre 
kept carefully on the outside of the threshold, stood by, as if 
amused at the boy’s eagerness. 

“ ‘ Take care,’ said he, clearly and distinctly ; ‘ take care, 
my little friend, lest you become a fop ; and, in that case, 
some day, years hence, when your heart is devoted to some 
young lady, she may be inclined to say to you ’ — here he 
raised his voice — ‘ No, thank you ; when I marry, I marry a 
man, not a petit-maitre ; I marry a man, who, whatever his 
position may be, will add dignity to the human race by his 
virtues.’ Farther than that in his quotation Clement dared 
not go. His sentiments (so much above the apparent occa- 
sion) met with applause from Pierre, who liked to contem- 
plate himself in the light of a lover, even though it should be 
a rejected one, and who hailed the mention of the words 
‘ virtues ’ and ‘ dignity of the human race ’ as belonging to 
the cant of a good citizen. 

“ But Clement was more anxious to know how the 
invisible lady took his speech. There was no sign at the 
time. But when he returned at night, he heard a voice, low 
singing, behind Madame Babette, as she handed him his 
candle, the very air he had sung without effect for two 
nights past. As if he had caught it up from her murmuring 
voice, he sang it loudly and clearly as he crossed the court. 

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My Lady Ludlow 

“ ‘ Here is our opera-singer ! * exclaimed Madame Babette. 

‘ Why, the Norman grazier sings like Boupr6,’ naming a 
favourite singer at the neighbouring theatre. 

“ Pierre was struck by the remark, and quietly resolved 
to look after the Norman ; but again, I believe, it was more 
because of his mother’s deposit of money than with any 
thought of Yirginie. 

“ However, the next morning, to the wonder of both 
mother and son, Mademoiselle Cannes proposed, with much 
hesitation, to go out and make some little purchase for her- 
self. A month or two ago, this was what Madame Babette 
had been never weary of urging. But now she was as much 
surprised as if she had expected Yirginie to remain a prisoner 
in her rooms all the rest of her life. I suppose she had 
hoped that her first time of quitting it would be when she 
left it for Monsieur Morin’s house as his wife. 

“ A quick look from Madame Babette towards Pierre was 
all that was needed to encourage the boy to follow her. He 
went out cautiously. She was at the end of the street. She 
looked up and down, as if waiting for some one. No one 
was there. Back she came, so swiftly that she nearly caught 
Pierre before he could retreat through the porte-cochere. 
There he looked out again. The neighbourhood was low 
and wild, and strange ; and some one spoke to Yirginie, — 
nay, laid his hand upon her arm — whose dress and aspect 
(he had emerged out of a side-street) Pierre did not know ; 
but, after a start, and (Pierre could fancy) a little scream, 
'Yirginie recognised the stranger, and the two turned up the 
side street whence the man had come. Pierre stole swiftly 
to the corner of this street; no one was there: they had 
disappeared up some of the alleys. Pierre returned home to 
excite his mother’s infinite surprise. But they had hardly 
done talking when Yirginie returned, with a colour and a . 
radiance in her face, which they had never seen there since 
her father’s death. 


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My Lady Ludlow 


CHAPTER VII 

“ I have told yon -that I heard much of this story from a 
friend of the Intendant of the De Crequys, whom he met 
with in London. Some years afterwards — the summer 
before my lord’s death — I was travelling with him in Devon- 
shire, and we went to see the French prisoners of war on 
Dartmoor. We fell into conversation with one of them, 
whom I found out to be the very Pierre of whom I had 
heard before, as having been involved in the fatal story of 
Clement and Yirginie, and by him I was told much of their 
last days, and thus I learnt how to have some sympathy 
with all those who were concerned in those terrible events ; 
yes, even with the younger Morin himself, on whose behalf 
Pierre spoke warmly, even after so long a time had elapsed. 

“ For, when the younger Morin called at the porter’s 
lodge, on the evening of the day when Yirginie had gone 
out for the first time after so many months’ confinement to 
the conciergerie, he was struck with the improvement in her 
appearance. It seems to have hardly been that he thought 
her beauty greater ; for, in addition to the fact that she 
was not beautiful, Morin had arrived at that point of being 
enamoured when it does not signify whether the beloved 
one is plain or handsome — she has enchanted one pair of 
eyes, which henceforward see her through their own medium. 
But Morin noticed the faint increase of colour and light in • 
her countenance. It was as though she had broken through 
her thick cloud of hopeless sorrow, and was dawning forth 
into a happier life. And so, whereas during her grief he 
had revered and respected it even to a point of silent 
sympathy, now that she was gladdened his heart rose on 
the wings of strengthened hopes. Even in the dreary 
monotony of this existence in his Aunt Babette’s conciergerie 
Time had not failed in his work, and now, perhaps, soon he 
might humbly strive to help Time. The very next, day 

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My Lady Ludlow 

he returned— on some pretence of business — to the Hotel 
Duguesclin, and made his aunt’s room, rather than his aunt 
herself, a present of roses and geraniums tied up in a 
bouquet with a tricolour ribbon. Yirginie was in the room, 
sitting at the coarse sewing she liked to do for Madame 
Babette. He saw her eyes brighten at the sight of the 
flowers : she asked his aunt to let her arrange them ; he 
saw her untie the ribbon, and with a gesture of dislike, throw 
it on the ground, and give it a kick with her little foot, and 
even in this girlish manner of insulting his dearest prejudices 
he found something to admire. 

“As he was coming out Pierre stopped him. The lad 
had been trying to arrest his cousin’s attention by futile 
grimaces and signs played off behind Yirginie’s back; but 
Monsieur Morin saw nothing but Mademoiselle Cannes. 
However, Pierre was not to be baffled, and Monsieur Morin 
found him in waiting just outside the threshold. With his 
finger on his lips, Pierre walked on tiptoe by his companion’s 
side till they would have been long past sight or hearing of 
the conciergerie, even had the inhabitants devoted themselves 
to the purposes of spying or listening. 

“ ‘ Chut ! ’ said Pierre at last. * She goes out walking.’ 

“ ‘ Well ? ’ said Monsieur Morin, half curious, half annoyed 
at being disturbed in the delicious reverie of the future into 
which he longed to fall. 

“ ‘ Well ! It is not well. It is bad.’ 

“ * Why ? I do not ask who she is, but I have my ideas. 
She is an aristocrat. Do the people about here begin to 
suspect her ? ’ 

“ * No, no ! ’ said Pierre. ‘ But she goes out walking. 
She has gone these two mornings. I have watched her. 
She meets a man — she is friends with him, for she talks 
to him as eagerly as he does to her — mamma cannot tell 
who he is.’ 

“ * Has my aunt seen him ? ’ 

“ ‘ No, not so much as a fly’s wing of him. I myself 
have only seen his back. It strikes me like a familiar back, 

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My Lady Ludlow 

and yet I cannot think who it is. But they separate with 
sudden darts, like two birds who have been together to feed 
their young ones. One moment they are in close talk, their 
heads together chuchotting ; the next he has turned up some 
by-street, and Mademoiselle Cannes is close upon me ; — has 
almost caught me.’ 

“ ‘ But she did not see you ? ’ inquired Monsieur Morin, 
in so altered a voice that Pierre gave him one of his quick 
penetrating looks. He was struck by the way in which his 
cousin’s features — always coarse and commonplace — had 
become contracted and pinched; struck, too, by the livid 
look on his sallow complexion. But, as if Morin was 
conscious of the manner in which his face belied his feelings, 
he made an effort, and smiled, and patted Pierre’s head, 
and thanked him for his intelligence, and gave him a five- 
franc piece, and bade him go on with his observations of 
Mademoiselle Cannes’ movements and report all to him. 

“ Pierre returned home with a light heart, tossing up his 
five-franc piece as he ran. Just as he was at the conciergerie 
door, a great tall man bustled past him, and snatched his 
money away from him, looking back with a laugh, which 
added insult to injury. Pierre had no redress ; no one had 
witnessed the impudent theft, and, if they had, no one to be 
seen in the street was strong enough to give him redress. 
Besides, Pierre had seen enough of the state of the streets 
of Paris at that time to know that friends, not enemies, were 
required, and the man had a bad air about him. But all 
these considerations did not keep Pierre from bursting out 
into a fit of crying when he was once more under his 
mother’s roof ; and Yirginie, who was alone there (Madame 
Babette having gone out to make her daily purchases), might 
have imagined him pommelled to death by the loudness of 
his sobs. 

“ ‘ What is the matter ? ’ asked she. ‘ Speak, my child. 
What hast thou done ? ’ 

“ ‘ He has robbed me ! he has robbed me ! ’ was all Pierre 
could gulp out. 


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My Lady Ludlow 

“ ‘ Bobbed thee ! and of what, my poor boy ? ’ said 
Yirginie, stroking his hair gently. 

‘“Of my five-franc piece — of a five-franc piece,’ said 
Pierre, correcting himself, and leaving out the word my, 
half fearful lest Yirginie should inquire how he became 
possessed of such a sum, and for what services it had been 
given him. But, of course, no such idea came into her 
head, for it would have been impertinent, and she was 
gentle-born. 

“ ‘ Wait a moment, my lad,’ and going to the one small 
drawer in the inner apartment, which held all her few 
possessions, she brought back a little ring — a ring just with 
one ruby in it — which she had worn in the days when she 
cared to wear jewels. ‘ Take this,’ said she, * and run with 
it to a jeweller’s. It is but a poor, valueless thing, but it 
will bring you in your five francs, at any rate. Go ! I 
desire you.’ 

“ ‘ But I cannot,’ said the boy, hesitating ; some dim 
sense of honour flitting through his misty morals. 

“ ‘ Yes, you must ! ’ she continued, urging him with her 
hand to the door. ‘ Eun ! if it brings in more than five 
franks, you shall return the surplus to me.’ 

“Thus tempted by her urgency, and, I suppose, reason- 
ing with himself to the effect that he might as well have 
the money, and then see whether he thought it right to act 
as a spy upon her or not — the one action did not pledge 
him to the other, nor yet did she make any conditions with 
her gift — Pierre went off with her ring ; and, after repaying 
himself his five francs, he was enabled to bring Yirginie 
back two more, so well had he managed his affairs. But, 
although the whole transaction did not leave him bound, 
in any way, to discover or forward Yirginie’s wishes, it did 
leave him pledged, according to his code, to act according 
to her advantage, and he considered himself the judge of the 
best course to be pursued to this end. And, moreover, this 
little kindness attached him to her personally. He began to 
think how pleasant it would be to have so kind and generous 

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My Lady Ludlow 

a person for a relation; how easily his troubles might be 
borne if he had always such a ready helper at hand ; how 
much he should like to make her like him, and come to him 
for the protection of his masculine power ! First of all his 
duties, as her self-appointed squire, came the necessity of 
finding out who her strange new acquaintance was. Thus, 
you see, he arrived at the same end, via supposed duty, 
that he was previously pledged to via interest. I fancy a 
good number of us, when any line of action will promote 
our own interest, can make ourselves believe that reasons 
exist which compel us to it as a duty. 

“ In the course of a very few days, Pierre had so cir- 
cumvented Yirginie as to have discovered that her new 
friend was no other than the Norman farmer in a different 
dress. This was a great piece of knowledge to impart to 
Morin. But Pierre was not prepared for the immediate 
physical effect it had on his cousin. Morin sat suddenly 
down on one of the seats in the Boulevards — it was there 
Pierre had met with him accidentally — when he heard who 
it was that Yirginie met. I do not suppose the man had 
the faintest idea of any relationship or even previous ac- 
quaintanceship between Clement and Yirginie. If he thought 
of anything beyond the mere fact presented to him, that 
his idol was in communication with another, younger, hand- 
somer man than himself, it must have been that the 
Norman farmer had seen her at the conciergerie, and had 
been attracted by her, and, as was but natural, had tried 
to make her acquaintance, and had succeeded. But, from 
what Pierre told me, I should not think that even this 
much thought passed through Morin’s mind. He seems 
to have been a man of rare and concentrated attachments ; 
violent, though restrained and undemonstrative passions ; 
and, above all, a capability of jealousy, of which his dark 
oriental complexion must have been a type. I could fancy 
that, if he had married Virginie, he would have coined his 
life-blood for luxuries to make her happy; would have 
watched over and petted her, at every sacrifice to himself 

98 


My Lady Ludlow 

as long as she would have been content to live with him 
alone. But, as Pierre expressed it to me : ‘ When I saw 
what my cousin was, when I learned his nature too late, 
I perceived that he would have strangled a bird if she 
whom he loved was attracted by it from him.’ 

“ When Pierre had told Morin of his discovery, Morin 
sat down, as I said, quite suddenly, as if he had been shot. 
He found out that the first meeting between the Norman 
and Yirginie w T as no accidental, isolated circumstance. 
Pierre was torturing him with his accounts of daily ren- 
dezvous : if but for a moment, they were seeing each other 
every day, sometimes twice a day. And Yirginie could 
speak to this man, though to himself she was so coy and 
reserved as hardly to utter a sentence. Pierre caught these 
broken words while his cousin’s complexion grew more and 
more livid, and then purple, as if some great effect were 
produced on his circulation by the news he had just heard. 
Pierre was so startled by his cousin’s wandering, senseless 
eyes, and otherwise disordered looks, that he rushed into 
a neighbouring cabaret for a glass of absinthe, which he 
paid for, as he recollected afterwards, with a portion of 
Yirginie’s five francs. By-and-by Morin recovered his 
natural appearance ; but he was gloomy and silent ; and 
all that Pierre could get out of him was, that the Norman 
farmer should not sleep another night at the Hotel Dugues- 
clin, giving him such opportunities of passing and repassing 
by the conciergerie door. He was too much absorbed in 
his own thoughts to repay Pierre the half-franc he had 
spent on the absinthe, which Pierre perceived, and seems 
to have noted down in the ledger of his mind as on Yirginie’s 
balance of favour. 

“ Altogether, he was much disappointed at his cousin’s 
mode of receiving intelligence, which the lad thought worth 
another five-franc piece at least ; or, if not paid for in money, 
to be paid for in open-mouthed confidence and expression, 
of feeling ; and thus he was, for a time, so far a partisan of 
Virginie’s — unconscious Yirginie’s— against his cousin, as to 

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My Lady Ludlow 

feel regret when the Norman returned no more to his night’s 
lodging, and when Yirginie’s eager watch at the crevice of 
the close-drawn blind ended only with a sigh of disappoint- 
ment. If it had not been for his mother’s presence at the 
time, Pierre thought he should have told her all. But how 
far was his mother in his cousin’s confidence as regarded 
the dismissal of the Norman ? 

“In a few days, however, Pierre felt almost sure that 
they had established some new means of communication. 
Yirginie went out for a short time every day ; but, though 
Pierre followed her as closely as he could without exciting 
her observation, he was unable to discover what kind of 
intercourse she held with the Norman. She went, in 
general, the same short round among the little shops in 
the neighbourhood; not entering any, but stopping at two 
or three. Pierre afterwards remembered that she had in- 
variably paused at the nosegays displayed in a certain 
window, and studied them long ; but, then, she stopped and 
looked at caps, hats, fashions, confectionery (all of the 
humble kind common in that quarter), so how should he 
have known that any particular attraction existed among 
the flowers? Morin came more regularly than ever to his 
aunt’s ; but Yirginie was apparently unconscious that she 
was the attraction. She looked healthier and more hopeful 
than she had done for months, and her manners to all 
were gentler and not so reserved. Almost as if she wished 
to manifest her gratitude to Madame Babette for her long 
continuance of kindness, the necessity for which was nearly 
ended, Yirginie showed an unusual alacrity in rendering the 
old woman any little service in her power, and evidently 
tried to respond to Monsieur Morin’s civilities, he being 
Madame Babette’s nephew, with a soft graciousness which 
must have made one of her principal charms ; for all who 
knew her speak of the fascination of her manners, so winning 
•and attentive to others, while yet her opinions, and often 
her actions, were of so decided a character. For, as I have 
said, her beauty was by no means great; yet every man 

ioo 


My Lady Ludlow 

who came near her seems to have fallen into the sphere 
of her influence. Monsieur Morin was deeper than ever 
in love with her during these last few days : he was worked 
up into a state capable of any sacrifice, either of himself or 
others, so that he might obtain her at last. He sat ‘ devour- 
ing her with his eyes * (to use Pierre’s expression) whenever 
she could not see him ; but, if she looked towards him, 
he looked to the ground — anywhere — away from her, and 
almost stammered in his replies if she addressed any question 
to him. 

“ He had been, I should think, ashamed of his extreme 
agitation on the Boulevards, for Pierre thought that he 
absolutely shunned him for these few succeeding days. He 
must have believed that he had driven the Norman (my poor 
Clement !) off the field, by banishing him from his inn ; and 
have thought that the intercourse between him and Yirginie, 
which he had thus interrupted, was of so slight and transient 
a character as to be quenched by a little difficulty. 

“ But he appears to have felt that he had made but little 
way, and he awkwardly turned to Pierre for help — not yet 
confessing his love, though ; he only tried to make friends 
again with the lad after their silent estrangement. And 
Pierre for some time did not choose to perceive his cousin’s 
advances. He would reply to all the roundabout questions 
Morin put to him respecting household conversations when 
he was not present, or household occupations and tone of 
thought, without mentioning Yirginie’s name any more than 
his questioner did. The lad would seem to suppose that 
his cousin’s strong interest in their domestic ways of going 
on was all on account of Madame Babette. At last he 
worked his cousin up to the point of making him a confidant ; 
and then the boy was half frightened at the torrent of 
vehement words he had unloosed. The lava came down 
with a greater rush for having been pent up so long. Morin 
cried out his words in a hoarse, passionate voice, clenched 
his teeth, his fingers, and seemed almost convulsed, as he 
spoke out his terrible love for Yirginie, which would lead 

IOT 


My Lady Ludlow 

him to kill her sooner than see her another’s ; and if another 
stepped in between him and her ! — and then he smiled a 
fierce, triumphant smile, but did not say any more. 

“ Pierre was, as I said, half frightened ; but also half 
admiring. This was really love — a ‘ grande passion ’ — a 
really fine dramatic thing — like the plays they acted at the 
little theatre yonder. He had a dozen times the sympathy 
with his cousin now that he had had before, and readily 
swore by the infernal gods — for they were far too enlightened 
to believe in one God, or Christianity, or anything of the 
kind — that he would devote himself, body and soul, to 
forwarding his cousin’s views. Then his cousin took him 
to a shop, and bought him a smart second-hand watch, on 
which they scratched the word Fidelite, and thus was the 
compact sealed. Pierre settled in his own mind that, if he 
were a woman, he should like to be beloved as Yirginie was 
by his cousin, and that it would be an extremely good thing 
for her to be the wife of so rich a citizen as Morin Fils — 
and for Pierre himself, too, for doubtless their gratitude 
would lead them to give him rings and watches ad infinitum. 

“ A day or two afterwards, Yirginie was taken ill. 
Madame Babette said it was because she had persevered 
in going out in all weathers, after confining herself to two 
warm rooms for so long ; and very probably this was really 
the cause, for, from Pierre’s account, she must have been 
suffering from a feverish cold, aggravated, no doubt, by her 
impatience at Madame Babette’s familiar prohibitions of any 
more walks until she was better. Every day, in spite of 
her trembling, aching limbs, she would fain have arranged 
her dress for her walk at the usual time ; but Madame 
Babette was fully prepared to put physical obstacles in her 
way, if she was not obedient in remaining tranquil on the 
little sofa by the side of the fire. The third day, she called 
Pierre to her, when his mother was not attending (having, 
in fact, locked up Mademoiselle Cannes’ out-of-door things). 

“ ‘ See, my child,’ said Yirginie. ‘ Thou must do me a 
great favour. Go to the gardener’s shop in the Rue des 

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Bons-Enfans, and look at the nosegays in the window. I 
long for pinks; they are my favourite flower. Here are 
two francs. If thou seest a nosegay of pinks displayed in 
the window, if it be ever so faded, — nay, if thou seest two 
or three nosegays of pinks, remember, buy them all, and 
bring them to me, I have so great a desire for the smell.” 
She fell back weak and exhausted. Pierre hurried out. 
Now was the time ; here was the clue to the long inspection 
of the nosegay in this very shop. 

“ Sure enough, there was a drooping nosegay of pinks in 
the window. Pierre went in, and, with all his impatience, 
he made as good a bargain as he could, urging that the 
flowers were faded, and good for nothing. At last he 
purchased them at a very moderate price. And now you 
will learn the bad consequences of teaching the lower orders 
anything beyond what is immediately necessary to enable 
them to earn their daily bread ! The silly Count de Crequy, 
— he who had been sent to his bloody rest by the very 
canaille of whom he thought so much — he who had made 
Yirginie (indirectly, it is true) reject such a man as her 
cousin Clement, by inflating her mind with his bubbles of 
theories — this Count de Crequy had long ago taken a fancy 
to Pierre, as he saw the bright sharp child playing about his 
courtyard. Monsieur de Crequy had even begun to educate 
the boy himself, to try to work out certain opinions of his 
into practice — but the drudgery of the affair wearied him, 
and, besides, Babette had left his employment. Still the 
Count took a kind of interest in his former pupil ; and made 
some sort of arrangement by which Pierre was to be taught 
reading and writing, and accounts, and Heaven knows what 
besides — Latin, I dare say. So Pierre, instead of being an 
innocent messenger, as he ought to have been — (as Mr. 
Horner’s little lad Gregson ought to have been this morning) 
— could read writing as well as either you or I. So what 
does he do, on obtaining the nosegay, but examine it well. 
The stalks of the flowers were tied up with slips of matting 
in wet moss. Pierre undid the strings, unwrapped the moss, 

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My Lady Ludlow 

and out fell a piece of wet paper, with the writing all blurred 
with moisture. It was but a torn piece of writing-paper, 
apparently, but Pierre’s wicked mischievous eyes read what 
was written on it — written so as to look like a fragment — 
‘ Ready, every and any night at nine. All is prepared. 
Have no fright. 1 Trust one who, whatever hopes he might 
once have had, is content now to serve you as a faithful 
cousin ; ’ and a place was named, which I forget, but which 
Pierre did not, as it was evidently the rendezvous. After 
the lad had studied every word, till he could say it off by 
heart, he placed the paper where he had found it, enveloped 
it in moss, and tied the whole up again carefully. Virginie’s 
face coloured scarlet as she received it. She kept smelling 
at it, and trembling : but she did not untie it, although 
Pierre suggested how much fresher it would be if the stalks 
were immediately put into water. But once, after his back 
had been turned for a minute, he saw it untied when he 
looked round again, and Yirginie was blushing, and hiding 
something in her bosom. 

“ Pierre was now all impatience to set off and find his 
cousin. But his mother seemed to want him for small 
domestic purposes even more than usual ; and he had chafed 
over a multitude of errands connected with the Hotel before 
he could set off and search for his cousin at hik usual haunts. 
At last the two met ; and Pierre related all the events of the 
morning to Morin. He said the note off word by word. 
(That lad this morning had something of the magpie look 
of Pierre — it made me shudder to see him, and hear him 
repeat the note by heart.) Then Morin asked him to tell 
him all over again. Pierre was struck by Morin’s heavy 
sighs as he repeated the story. When he came the second 
time to the note, Morin tried to write the words down ; but 
either he was not a good, ready scholar, or his fingers 
trembled too much. Pierre hardly remembered, but, at any 
rate, the lad had to do it, with his wicked reading and 
writing. When this was done, Morin sat heavily silent. 
Pierre would have preferred the expected outburst, for this 

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impenetrable gloom perplexed and baffled him. He had 
even to speak to his cousin to rouse him ; and when he 
replied, what he said had so little apparent connection with 
the subject which Pierre had expected to find uppermost in 
his mind, that he was half afraid that his cousin had lost 
his wits. 

“ ‘ My Aunt Babette is out of coffee.’ 

“ ‘ I am sure I do not know,’ said Pierre. 

“ * Yes, she is. I heard her say so. Tell her that a 
friend of mine has just opened a shop in the Eue Saint 
Antoine, and that, if she will join me there in an hour, 
I will supply her with a good stock of coffee, just to give 
my friend encouragement. His name is Antoine Meyer, 
Number One hundred and Fifty, at the sign of the Cap of 
Liberty.’ 

“ ‘ I could go with you now. I can carry a few pounds 
of coffee better than my mother,’ said Pierre, all in good 
faith. He told me he should never forget the look on his 
cousin’s face, as he turned round, and bade him begone, 
and give his mother the message without another word. It 
had evidently sent him home promptly to obey his cousin’s 
command. Morin’s message perplexed Madame Babette. 

“ ‘ How could he know I was out of coffee ? ’ said she. 
‘ I am ; but I ‘only used the last up this morning. How 
could Victor know about it ? ’ 

“‘lam sure I can’t tell,’ said Pierre, who by this time 
had recovered his usual self-possession. ‘ All I know is, that 
monsieur is in a pretty temper, and that if you are not sharp 
to your time at this Antoine Meyer’s you are likely to come 
in for some of his black looks.’ 

“ 1 Well, it is very kind of him to offer to give me 
some coffee, to be sure ! But how could he know I was 
out ? ’ 

“ Pierre hurried his mother off impatiently, for he was 
certain that the offer of the coffee was only a blind to some 
hidden purpose on his cousin’s part ; and he made no doubt 
that, when his mother had been informed of what his cousin’s 

io5 


My Lady Ludlow 

real intention was, he, Pierre, could extract it from her by- 
coaxing or bullying. But he was mistaken. Madame 
Babette returned home, grave, depressed, silent, and loaded 
with the best coffee. Some time afterwards he learnt why 
his cousin had sought for this interview. It was to extract 
from her, by promises and threats, the real name of 
Mam’selle Cannes, which would give him a clue to the 
true appellation of the ‘ faithful cousin.’ He concealed this 
second purpose from his aunt, who had been quite unaware 
of his jealousy of the Norman farmer, or of his identification 
of him with any relation of Yirginie’s. But Madame Babette 
instinctively shrank from giving him any information : she 
must have felt that, in the lowering mood in which she found 
him, his desire for greater knowledge of Yirginie’s ante- 
cedents boded her no good. And yet he made his aunt his 
confidante — told her what she had only suspected before — 
that he was deeply enamoured of Mam’selle Cannes, and 
would gladly marry her. He spoke to Madame Babette of 
his father’s hoarded riches ; and of the share which he, as 
partner, had in them at the present time ; and of the pros- 
pect of the succession to the whole, which he had, as only 
child. He told his aunt of the provision for her (Madame 
Babette’s) life, which he would make on the day when he 
married Mam’selle Cannes. And yet — and yet — Babette 
saw that in his eye and look which made her more and more 
reluctant to confide in him. By-and-by he tried threats. 
She should leave the conciergerie, and find employment 
where she liked. Still silence. Then he grew angry, and 
swore that he would inform against her at the bureau of the 
Directory, for harbouring an aristocrat; an aristocrat he 
knew Mademoiselle was, whatever her real name might be. 
His aunt should have a domiciliary visit, and see how she 
liked that. The officers of the Government were the people 
for finding out secrets. In vain she reminded him that, by 
so doing, he would expose to imminent danger the lady 
whom he had professed to love. He told her, with a sudden 
relapse into silence after his vehement outpouring of passion, 

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My Lady Ludlow 

never to trouble herself about that. At last he wearied out 
the old woman, and, frightened alike of herself, and of him, 
she told him all — that Mam’selle Cannes was Mademoiselle 
Virginie de Crequy, daughter of the Count of that name. 
Who was the Count? Younger brother of the Marquis. 
Where was the Marquis ? Dead long ago, leaving a widow 
and child. A son ? (eagerly). Yes, a son. Where was he ? 
Parbleu ! how should she know ? — for her courage returned 
a little as the talk went away from the only person of the 
De Crequy family that she cared about. But, by dint of 
some small glasses out of a bottle of Antoine Meyer’s, she 
told him more about the De Crequys than she liked after- 
wards to remember. For the exhilaration of the brandy 
lasted but a very short time, and she came home, as I have 
said, depressed, with a presentiment of coming evil. She 
would not answer Pierre, but cuffed him about in a manner 
to which the spoilt boy was quite unaccustomed. His 
cousin’s short, angry words, and sudden withdrawal of con- 
fidence — his mother’s unwonted crossness and fault-finding : 
all made Yirginie’s kind, gentle treatment more than ever 
charming to the lad. He half resolved to tell her how he 
had been acting as a spy upon her actions, and at whose 
desire he had done it. But he was afraid of Morin, and of 
the vengeance which he was sure would fall upon him for 
any breach of confidence. Towards half-past eight that 
evening, Pierre, watching, saw Virginie arrange several 
little things — she was in the inner room, but he sat where 
he could see her through the glazed partition. His mother 
sat — apparently sleeping — in the great easy-chair ; Virginie 
moved about softly, for fear of disturbing her. She made up 
one or two little parcels of the few things she could call her 
own ; one packet she concealed about herself — the others 
she directed, and left on the shelf. ‘ She is going,’ thought 
Pierre, and (as he said in giving me the account) his heart 
gave a spring, to think that he should never see her again. 
If either his mother or his cousin had been more kind to 
him, he might have endeavoured to intercept her ; but as it 

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My Lady Ludlow 

was, he held his breath, and when she came out he pre- 
tended to read, scarcely knowing whether he wished her to 
succeed in the purpose which he was almost sure she enter- 
tained, or not. She stopped by him, and passed her hand 
over his hair. He told me that his eyes filled with tears at 
this caress. Then she stood for a moment, looking at the 
sleeping Madame Babette, and stooped down and softly 
kissed her on the forehead. Pierre dreaded lest his mother 
should awake (for by this time the wayward, vacillating boy 
must have been quite on Yirginie’s side), but the brandy she 
had drunk made her slumber heavily. Virginie went. 
Pierre’s heart beat fast. He was sure his cousin would try 
to intercept her ; but how, he could not imagine. He longed 
to run out and see the catastrophe — but he had let the 
moment slip ; he was also afraid of re-awakening his mother 
to her unusual state of anger and violence. 


CHAPTER VIII 

“ Pierre went on pretending to read, but in reality listening 
with acute tension of ear to every little sound. His per- 
ceptions became so sensitive in this respect that he was 
incapable of measuring time, every moment had seemed so 
full of noises, from the beating of his heart up to the roll of 
the heavy carts in the distance. He wondered whether 
Virginie would have reached the place of rendezvous, and yet 
he was unable to compute the passage of minutes. His 
mother slept soundly : that was well. By this time Virginie 
must have met the ‘ faithful cousin ; ’ if, indeed, Morin had 
not made his appearance. 

“ At length, he felt as if he could no longer sit still, await- 
ing the issue, but must run out and see what course events 
had taken. In vain his mother, half rousing herself, called 
after him to ask whither he was going : he was already out 

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My Lady Ludlow 

of hearing before she had ended her sentence, and he ran 
on until stopped by the sight of Mademoiselle Cannes walk- 
ing along at so swift a pace that it was almost a run ; while 
at her side, resolutely keeping by her, Morin was strid- 
ing abreast. Pierre had just turned the corner of the 
street when he came upon them. Yirginie would have 
passed him without recognising him, she was in such pas- 
sionate agitation, but for Morin’s gesture, by which he 
would fain have kept Pierre from interrupting them. Then, 
when Yirginie saw the lad, she caught at his arm, and 
thanked God, as if in that boy of twelve or fourteen she held 
a protector. Pierre felt her tremble from head to foot, and 
was afraid lest she would fall, there where she stood, in the 
hard rough street. 

“ * Begone, Pierre ! ’ said Morin. 

“‘I cannot,’ replied Pierre, who indeed was held firmly 
by Yirginie. ‘ Besides, I won’t,’ he added. ‘ Who has been 
frightening mademoiselle in this way ? ’ asked he, very much 
inclined to brave his cousin at all hazards. 

“ ‘ Mademoiselle is not accustomed to walk in the streets 
alone,’ said Morin sulkily. ‘ She came upon a crowd 
attracted by the arrest of an aristocrat, and their cries 
alarmed her. I offered to take charge of her home. Made- 
moiselle should not walk in these streets alone. We are not 
like the cold-blooded people of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.’ 

“ Yirginie did not speak. Pierre doubted if she heard 
a word of what they were saying. She leant upon him 
more and more heavily. 

“ ‘ Will mademoiselle condescend to take my arm ? ’ said 
Morin, with sulky, and yet humble, uncouthness. I dare 
say he would have given worlds if he might have had that 
little hand within his arm ; but, though she still kept silence, 
she shuddered up away from him, as you shrink from touch- 
ing a toad. He had said something to her during that walk, 
you may be sure, which had made her loathe him. He 
marked and understood the gesture. He held himself aloof, 
while Pierre gave her 'all the assistance he could in their 

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My Lady Ludlow 

slow progress homewards. But Morin accompanied her all 
the same. He had played too desperate a game to be 
baulked now. He had given information against the ci- 
devant Marquis de Crequy, as a returned emigre, to be met 
with at such a time, in such a place. Morin had hoped that 
all sign of the arrest would have been cleared away before 
Yirginie reached the spot — so swiftly were terrible deeds 
done in those days. But Clement defended himself despe- 
rately ; Yirginie was punctual to a second ; and, though the 
wounded man was borne off to the Abbaye, amid a crowd of 
the unsympathising jeerers who mingled with the armed 
officials of the Directory, Morin feared lest Yirginie had 
recognised him; and he would have preferred that she 
should have thought that the ‘ faithful cousin ’ was faithless, 
than that she should have seen him in bloody danger on her 
account. I suppose he fancied that, if Yirginie never saw 
or heard more of him, her imagination would not dwell on 
his simple disappearance, as it would do if she knew what 
he was suffering for her sake. 

“At any rate, Pierre saw that his cousin was deeply 
mortified by the whole tenor of his behaviour during their 
walk home. When they arrived at Madame Babette’s, 
Yirginie fell fainting on the floor ; her strength had but just 
sufficed for this exertion of reaching the shelter of the house. 
Her first sign of restoring consciousness consisted in avoid- 
ance of Morin. He had been most assiduous in his efforts 
to bring her round ; quite tender in his way, Pierre said ; 
and this marked, instinctive repugnance to him evidently 
gave him extreme pain. I suppose Prenchmen are more 
demonstrative than we are ; for Pierre declared that he saw 
his cousin’s eyes fill with tears, as she shrank away from his 
touch, if he tried to arrange the shawl they had laid under 
her head like a pillow, or as she shut her eyes when he 
passed before her. Madame Babette was urgent with her to 
go and lie down on the bed in the inner room ; but it was 
some time before she was strong enough to rise and do this. 

“When Madame Babette returned from arranging the 
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My Lady Ludlow 

girl comfortably, the three relations sat down in silence : a 
silence which Pierre thought would never be broken. He 
wanted his mother to ask his cousin what had happened. 
But Madame Babette was afraid of her nephew, and thought 
it more discreet to wait for such crumbs of intelligence as he 
might think fit to throw to her. But, after she had twice 
reported Virginie to be asleep, without a word being uttered 
in reply to her whispers by either of her companions, Morin’s 
powers of self -containment gave way. 

“ * It is hard ! * he said. 

“ ‘ What is hard ? ’ asked Madame Babette, after she had 
paused for a time, to enable him to add to, or to finish, his 
sentence if he pleased. 

“ ‘ It is hard for a man to love a woman as I do,’ he went 
on. ‘ I did not seek to love her, it came upon me before I 
was aware — before I had ever thought about it at all, I loved 
her better than all the world beside. All my life, before I 
knew her, seems a dull blank. I neither know nor care for 
what I did before then. And now there are just two fives 
before me. Either I have her, or I have not. That is all, 
but that is everything. And what can I do to make her 
have me ? Tell me, aunt,’ and he caught at Madame 
Babette’s arm, and gave it so sharp a shake, that she half 
screamed out, Pierre said, and evidently grew alarmed at her 
nephew’s excitement. 

“ * Hush, Victor ! ’ said she. ‘ There are other women in 
the world, if this one will not have you.’ 

“ * None other for me,’ he said, sinking back as if hope- 
less. ‘ I am plain and coarse, not one of the scented darlings 
of the aristocrats. Say that I am ugly, brutish ; I did not 
make myself so, any more than I made myself love her. It 
is my fate. But am I to submit to the consequences of my 
fate without a struggle ? Not I. As strong as my love is, 
so strong is my will. It can be no stronger,’ continued he 
gloomily. ‘ Aunt Babette, you must help me — you must 
make her love me.’ He was so fierce here, that Pierre said 
he did not wonder that his mother was frightened. 


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My Lady Ludlow 

“ ‘ I, Victor ! ’ she exclaimed. ‘ I make her love you ? 
How can I ? Ask me to speak for you to Mademoiselle 
Didot, or to Mademoiselle Cauchois even, or to such as they, 
and I’ll do it, and welcome. But to Mademoiselle de 
Crequy, why, you don’t know the difference ! These people 
—the old nobility, I mean — why, they don’t know a man 
from a dog, out of their own rank ! And no wonder, for the 
young gentlemen of quality are treated differently to us from 
their very birth. If she had you to-morrow, you would be 
miserable. Let me alone for knowing the aristocracy. I 
have not been a concierge to a duke and three counts for 
nothing. I tell you, all your ways are different to her 
ways.’ 

“ * I would change my “ways,” as you call them.’ 

“ ‘ Be reasonable, Victor.’ 

“ ‘ No, I will not be reasonable, if by that you mean 
giving her up. I tell you two lives are before me ; one with 
her, one without her. But the latter will be but a short 
career for both of us. You said, aunt, that the talk went 
in the conciergerie of her father’s hdtel, that she would have 
nothing to do with this cousin whom I put out of the wav 
to-day ? ’ 

‘“So the servants said. How could I know ? All I 
know is, that he left off coming to our hotel, and that at one 
time before then he had never been two days absent.’ 

“ So much the better for him. He suffers now for having 
come between me and my object — in trying to snatch her 
away out of my sight. Take you warning, Pierre ! I did 
not like your meddling to-night.’ And so he went off, 
leaving Madame Babette rocking herself backwards and 
forwards, in all the depression of spirits consequent upon the 
reaction after the brandy, and upon her knowledge of her 
nephew’s threatened purpose, combined. 

“In telling you most of this, I have simply repeated 
Pierre’s account, which I wrote down at the time. But here 
what he had to say came to a sudden break ; for, the next 
morning, when Madame Babette rose, Virginie was missing, 

1 1 2 


My Lady Ludlow 

and it was some time before either she, or Pierre, or Morin, 
could get the slightest clue to the missing girl. 

“ And now I must take up the story as it was told to the 
Intendant Flechier by the old gardener Jacques, with whom 
Clement had been lodging on his first arrival in Paris. 
The old man could not, I dare say, remember half as 
much of what had happened as Pierre did ; the former had 
the dulled memory of age, while Pierre had evidently 
thought over the whole series of events as a story — as a 
play, if one may call it so— during the solitary hours in his 
after-life, wherever they were passed, whether in lonely 
camp watches, or in the foreign prison, where he had to 
drag out many years. Clement had, as I said, returned to 
the gardener’s garret after he had been dismissed from the 
Hotel Duguesclin. There were several reasons for his thus 
doubling back. One was, that he put nearly the whole 
breadth of Paris between him and an enemy ; though why 
Morin was an enemy, and to what extent he carried his 
dislike or hatred, Clement could not tell, of course. The 
next reason for returning to Jacques was, no doubt, the con- 
viction that, in multiplying his residences, he multiplied the 
chances against his being suspected and recognised. And 
then, again, the old man was in his secret, and his ally, 
although perhaps but a feeble kind of one. It was through 
Jacques that the plan of communication, by means of a 
nosegay of pinks, had been devised ; and it was Jacques who 
procured him the last disguise that Clement was to use in 
Paris — as he hoped and trusted. It was that of a respectable 
shopkeeper of no particular class : a dress that would have 
seemed perfectly suitable to the young man who would 
naturally have worn it ; and yet, as Clement put it on, and 
adjusted it — giving it a sort of finish and elegance which I 
always noticed about his appearance, and which I believe 
was innate in the wearer — I have no doubt it seemed like 
the usual apparel of a gentleman. No coarseness of texture, 
nor clumsiness of cut could disguise the nobleman of thirty 
descents, it appeared ; for immediately on arriving at the 

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My Lady Ludlow 

place of rendezvous he was recognised by the men placed 
there on Morin’s information to seize him. Jacques, follow- 
ing at a little distance, with a bundle under his arm con- 
taining articles of feminine disguise for Virginie, saw four 
men attempt Clement’s arrest — saw him, quick as lightning, 
draw a sword hitherto concealed in a clumsy stick — saw his 
agile figure spring to his guard — and saw him defend himself 
with the rapidity and art of a man skilled in arms. ‘ But 
what good did it do?’ as Jacques piteously used to ask, 
Monsieur Flechier told me. A great blow from a heavy 
club on the sword-arm of Monsieur de Crequy laid it helpless 
and immovable by his side. Jacques always thought that 
that blow came from one of the spectators, who by this 
time had collected round the scene of the affray. The next 
instant, his master — his little marquis — was down among 
the feet of the crowd, and though he was up again before he 
had received much damage — so active and light was my 
poor Clement — it was not before the old gardener had 
hobbled forwards, and, with many an old-fashioned oath 
and curse, proclaimed himself a partisan of the losing side — 
a follower of a <?i-devant aristocrat. It was quite enough. 
He received one or two good blows, which were, in fact, 
aimed at his master ; and then, almost before he was aware, 
he found his arms pinioned behind him with a woman’s 
garter, which one of the viragos in the crowd had made no 
scruple of pulling off in public, as soon as she heard for 
what purpose it was wanted. Poor Jacques was stunned 
and unhappy — his master was out of sight, on before ; and 
the old gardener scarce knew whither they were taking him. 
His head ached from the blows which had fallen upon it ; it 
was growing dark— June day though it was — and, when first 
he seems to have become exactly aware of what had 
happened to him, it was when he was turned into one of the 
larger rooms of the Abbaye, in which all were put who had 
no other allotted place wherein to sleep. One or two iron 
lamps hung from the ceiling by chains, giving a dim light 
for a little circle. Jacques stumbled forwards over a sleeping 

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My Lady Ludlow 

body lying on the ground. The sleeper wakened up enough 
to complain ; and the apology of the old man in reply 
caught the ear of his master, who, until this time, could 
hardly have been aware of the straits and difficulties of his 
faithful Jacques. And there they sat — against a pillar, the 
livelong night, holding one another’s hands, and each re- 
straining expressions of pain, for fear of adding to the other’s 
distress. That night made them intimate friends, in spite of 
the difference of age and rank. The disappointed hopes, the 
acute suffering of the present, the apprehensions of the 
future, made them seek solace in talking of the past. 
Monsieur de Crequy and the gardener found themselves dis- 
puting with interest in which chimney of the stack the 
starling used to build — the starling whose nest Clement sent 
to Urian, you remember — and discussing the merits of 
different espalier-pears which grew, and may grow still, in 
the old garden of the Hotel de Crequy. Towards morning 
both fell asleep. The old man wakened first. His frame 
was deadened to suffering, I suppose, for he felt relieved of 
his pain ; but Clement moaned and cried in feverish slumber. 
His broken arm was beginning to inflame his blood. He 
was, besides, much injured by some kicks from the crowd as 
he fell. As the man looked sadly on the white, baked lips, 
and the flushed cheeks, contorted with suffering even in his 
sleep, Clement gave a sharp cry, which disturbed his 
miserable neighbours, all slumbering around in uneasy 
attitudes. They bade him with curses be silent ; and then, 
turning round, tried again to forget their own misery in 
sleep. For you see, the bloodthirsty canaille had not been 
sated with guillotining and hanging all the nobility they 
could find, but were now informing, right and left, even 
against each other; and, when Clement and Jacques were in 
the prison, there were few of gentle blood in the place, and 
fewer still of gentle manners. At. the sound of the angry 
words and threats, Jacques thought it best to awaken his 
master from his feverish, uncomfortable sleep, lest he should 
provoke more enmity ; and, tenderly lifting him up, he tried 

“5 


My Lady Ludlow 

to adjust his own body, so that it should serve as a rest and 
a pillow for the younger man. The motion aroused Clement, 
and he began to talk in a strange, feverish way, of Yirginie, 
too — whose name he would not have breathed in such a 
place had he been quite himself. But Jacques had as much 
delicacy of feeling as any lady in the land, although, mind 
you, he knew neither how to read nor write — and bent his 
head low down, so that his master might tell him in a 
whisper what messages he was to take, to Mademoiselle de 
Crequy, in case — Poor Clement, he knew it must come to 
that ! No escape for him now, in Norman disguise or other- 
wise ! Either by gathering fever or guillotine, death was 
sure of his prey. Well ! when that happened, Jacques was 
to go and find Mademoiselle de Crequy, and tell her that her 
cousin loved her at the last as he had loved her at the first ; 
but that she should never have heard another word of his 
attachment from his living lips ; that he knew he was not 
good enough for her, his queen ; and that no thought of 
earning her love by his devotion had prompted his return to 
France, only that, if possible, he might have the great 
privilege of serving her whom he loved. And then he went 
off into rambling talk about petit-maitres, and such kind of 
expressions, said Jacques to Flechier, the Intendant, little 
knowing what a clue that one word gave to much of the 
poor lad’s suffering. 

“ The summer morning came slowly on in that dark 
prison, and when Jacques could look round — his master 
was now sleeping on his shoulder, still the uneasy, starting 
sleep of fever — he saw that there were many women among 
the prisoners. (I have heard some of those who have 
escaped from the prisons say, that the look of despair and 
agony that came into the faces of the prisoners on first 
wakening, as the sense of their situation grew upon them, 
was what lasted the longest in the memory of the survivors. 
This look, they said, passed away from the women’s faces 
sooner than it did from those of the men.) 

“ Poor old Jacques kept falling asleep, and plucking 
116 


My Lady Ludlow 

himself up again, for fear lest, if he did not attend to his 
master, some harm might come to the swollen, helpless 
arm. Yet his weariness grew upon him in spite of all 
his efforts, and at last he felt as if he must give way to 
the irresistible desire, if only for five minutes. But just 
then there was a bustle at the door. Jacques opened his 
eyes wide to look. 

“ ‘ The gaoler is early with breakfast,’ said some one 
lazily. 

“ ‘ It is the darkness of this cursed place that makes us 
think it early,’ said another. 

“ All this time a parley was going on at the door. Some 
one came in; not the gaoler — a woman. The door was 
shut to and locked behind her. She only advanced a step 
or two, for it was too sudden a change, out of the light into 
that dark shadow, for any one to see clearly for the first few 
minutes. Jacques had his eyes fairly open now, and was 
wide awake. It was Mademoiselle de Crequy, looking bright, 
clear, and resolute. The faithful heart of the old man read 
that look like an open page. Her cousin should not die 
there on her behalf, without at least the comfort of her 
sweet presence. 

“ ‘ Here he is,’ he whispered, as her gown would have 
touched him in passing, without her perceiving him, in the 
heavy obscurity of the place. 

“ ‘ The good God bless you, my friend ! ’ she murmured, 
as she saw the attitude of the old man, propped against a 
pillar, and holding Clement in his arms, as if the young 
man had been a helpless baby, while one of the poor 
gardener’s hands supported the broken limb in the easiest 
position. Yirginie sat down by the old man, and held out 
her arms. Softly she moved Clement’s head to her own 
shoulder ; softly she transferred the task of holding the arm 
to herself. Clement lay on the floor, but she supported him, 
and Jacques was at liberty to arise and stretch and shake 
his stiff, weary old body. He then sat down at a little 
distance, and watched the pair until he fell asleep. Clement 

117 


My Lady Ludlow 

had muttered ‘ Virginie,’ as they half-roused him by their 
movements out of his stupor ; but J acques thought he was 
only dreaming ; nor did he seem fully awake when once his 
eyes opened, and he looked full at Virginie’s face bending 
over him, and growing crimson under his gaze, though she 
never stirred, for fear of hurting him if she moved. Clement 
looked in silence, until his heavy eyelids came slowly down, 
and he fell into his oppressive slumber again. Either he did 
not recognise her, or she came in too completely as a part 
of his sleeping visions for him to be disturbed by her appear- 
ance there. 

“ When Jacques awoke it was full daylight — at least as 
full as it would ever be in that place. His breakfast — the 
gaol- allowance of bread and vin ordinaire — was by his side. 
He must have slept soundly. He looked for his master. 
He and Yirginie had recognised each other now — hearts, as 
well as appearance. They were smiling into each other’s 
faces, as if that dull vaulted room in the grim Abbaye were 
the sunny gardens of Versailles, with music and festivity all 
abroad. Apparently they had much to say to each other ; 
for whispered questions and answers never ceased. 

“ Yirginie had made a sling for the poor broken arm • 
nay, she had obtained two splinters of wood in some way, 
and one of their fellow-prisoners— having, it appeared, some 
knowledge of surgery — had set it. Jacques felt more despond- 
ing by far than they did, for he was suffering from the night 
he had passed, which told upon his aged frame ; while they 
must have heard some good news, as it seemed to him, so 
bright and happy did they look. Yet Clement was still in 
bodily pain and suffering, and Yirginie, by her own act and 
deed, was a prisoner in that dreadful Abbaye, whence the 
only issue was the guillotine. But they were together ; they 
loved ; they understood each other at length. 

“ When Yirginie saw that Jacques was awake, and 
languidly munching his breakfast, she rose from the wooden 
stool on which she was sitting, and went to him, holding out 
both hands, and refusing to allow him to rise, while she 

nS 


My Lady Ludlow 

thanked him with pretty eagerness for all his kindness to 
Monsieur. Monsieur himself came towards him, following 
Yirginie, but with tottering steps, as if his head was weak 
and dizzy, to thank the poor old man, who, now on his feet, 
stood between them, ready to cry while they gave him credit 
for faithful actions which he felt to have been almost involun- 
tary on his part — for loyalty was like an instinct in the good 
old days, before your educational cant had come up. And 
so two days went on. The only event was the morning call 
for the victims, a certain number of whom were summoned 
to trial every day. And to be tried was to be condemned. 
Every one of the prisoners became grave, as the hour for 
their summons approached. Most of the victims went to 
their doom with uncomplaining resignation, and for a while 
after their departure there was comparative silence in the 
prison. But, by-and-by — so said Jacques — the conversation 
or amusement began again. Human nature cannot stand 
the perpetual pressure of such keen anxiety, without an 
effort to relieve itself by thinking of something else. Jacques 
said that Monsieur and Mademoiselle were for ever talking 
together of the past days — it was ‘ Do you remember this ? * 
or, ‘ Do you remember that ? * perpetually. He sometimes 
thought they forgot where they were, and what was before 
them. But Jacques did not, and every day he trembled more 
and more as the list was called over. 

“ The third morning of their incarceration, the gaoler 
brought in a man whom Jacques did not recognise, and 
therefore did not at once observe ; for he was waiting, as in 
duty bound , upon his master and his sweet young lady (as he 
always called her in repeating the story). He thought that 
the new introduction was some friend of the gaoler, as the 
two seemed well acquainted, and the latter stayed a few r 
minutes talking with his visitor before leaving him in prison. 
So Jacques was surprised when, after a short time had 
elapsed, he looked round, and saw the fierce stare with 
which the stranger was regarding Monsieur and Mademoi- 
selle de Crequy, as the pair sat at breakfast— the said 

119 


My Lady Ludlow 

breakfast being laid as well as Jacques knew how, on a bench 
fastened into the prison wall — Yirginie sitting on her low 
stool, and Clement half lying on the ground by her side, and 
submitting gladly to be fed by her pretty white fingers ; for 
it was one of her fancies, Jacques said, to do all she could 
for him, in consideration of his broken arm. And, indeed, 
Clement was wasting away daily ; for he had received other 
injuries, internal and more serious than that to his arm, 
during the melee which had ended in his capture. The 
stranger made Jacques conscious of his presence by a sign, 
which was almost a groan. All three prisoners looked round 
at the sound. Clement’s face expressed little but scornful 
indifference; but Yirginie’s face froze into stony hate. Jacques 
said he never saw such a look, and hoped that he never 
should again. Yet after that first revelation of feeling, her 
look was steady and fixed in another direction to that in 
which the stranger stood — still motionless — still watching. 
He came a step nearer at last. 

“ ‘ Mademoiselle,’ he said. Not the quivering of an eye- 
lash showed that she heard him. ‘ Mademoiselle ! ’ he said 
again, with an intensity of beseeching that made Jacques — 
not knowing who he was — almost pity him, when he saw 
his young lady’s obdurate face. 

“ There was perfect silence for a space of time which 
Jacques could not measure. Then again the voice, hesi- 
tatingly, saying, ‘ Monsieur ! ’ Clement could not hold the 
same icy countenance as Yirginie ; he, turned his head with 
an impatient gesture of disgust ; but even that emboldened 
the man. 

“ ‘ Monsieur, do ask mademoiselle to listen to me — just 
two words.’ 

“ ‘ Mademoiselle de Cr^quy only listens to whom she 
chooses.’ Yery haughtily my Clement would say that, I am 
sure. 

“ ‘ But, mademoiselle,’ — lowering his voice, and coming a 
step or two nearer. Yirginie must have felt his approach, 
though she did not see it ; for she drew herself a little on 

120 


My Lady Ludlow 

one side, so as to put as much space as possible between him 
and her — ‘ Mademoiselle, it is not too late. I can save you ; 
but to-morrow your name is down on the list. I can save 
you, if you will listen.’ 

“ Still no word or sign. Jacques did not understand the 
affair. Why was she so obdurate to one who might be 
ready to include Clement in the proposal, as far as Jacques 
knew ? 

“ The man withdrew a little, but did not offer to leave 
the prison. He never took bis eyes off Yirginie ; be seemed 
to be suffering from some acute and terrible pain as be 
watched her. 

“Jacques cleared away the breakfast- things as well as 
he could. Purposely, as I suspect, be passed near the man. 

“ ‘ Hist ! ’ said the stranger. 1 You are Jacques, the 
gardener, arrested for assisting an aristocrat. I know the 
gaoler. You shall escape, if you will. Only take this 
message from me to mademoiselle. You heard. She will 
not listen to me ; I did not want her to come here. I never 
knew she was here, and she will die to-morrow. They will 
put her beautiful round throat under the guillotine. Tell 
her, good old man, tell her how sweet life is ; and how I can 
save her ; and how I will not ask for more than just to see 
her from time to time. She is so young; and death is 
annihilation, you know. Why does she hate me so ? I 
want to save her; I have done her no harm. Good old 
man, tell her how terrible death is ; and that she will die 
to-morrow, unless she listens to me.’ 

“Jacques saw no harm in repeating this message. 
Clement listened in silence, watching Yirginie with an air of 
infinite tenderness. 

“ ‘ Will you not try him, my cherished one ? ’ he said. 
‘ Towards you he may mean well ’ (which makes me 
think that Yirginie had never repeated to Clement the 
conversation which she had overheard that last night at 
Madame Babette’s) ; ‘ you would be in no worse a situation 
than you were before ! ’ 


I 2 1 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ 1 No worse, Clement ! and I should have known what 
you were, and have lost you. My Clement ! ’ said she 
reproachfully. 

“ ‘ Ask him,’ said she, turning to Jacques suddenly, ‘ if he 
can save Monsieur de Crequy as well, — if he can ? — O 
Clement, we might escape to England ; we are but young.’ 
And she hid her face on his shoulder. 

“ Jacques returned to the stranger, and asked him 
Yirginie’s question. His eyes were fixed on the cousins ; he 
was very pale, and the twitchings or contortions, which must 
have been involuntary whenever he was agitated, convulsed 
his whole body. 

“ He made a long pause. ‘ I will save mademoiselle and 
monsieur, if she will go straight from prison to the mairie, 
and be my wife.’ 

“ ‘ Your wife ! * Jacques could not help exclaiming, ‘ That 
she will never be — never ! ’ 

“ * Ask her ! ’ said Morin hoarsely. 

“ But almost before Jacques thought he could have fairly 
uttered the words, Clement caught their meaning. 

“ ‘ Begone ! ’ said he ; ‘ not one word more.’ Yirginie 
touched the old man as he was moving away. ‘ Tell 
him he does not know how he makes me welcome death.’ 
And smiling, as if triumphant, she turned again to Clement. 

“ The stranger did not speak as Jacques gave him the 
meaning, not the words, of their replies. He was going 
away, but stopped. A minute or two afterwards, he 
beckoned to Jacques. The old gardener seems to have 
thought it undesirable to throw away even the chance of 
assistance from such a man as this, for he went forward to 
speak to him. 

“ ‘ Listen ! I have influence with the gaoler. He shall 
let thee pass out with the victims to-morrow. No one will 

notice it, or miss thee . They will be led to trial — even 

at the last moment, I will save her, if she sends me word she 
relents. Speak to her, as the time draws on. Life is very 
sweet — tell her how sweet. Speak to him ; he will do more 

122 


My Lady Ludlow 

*r 

with her than thou canst. Let him urge her to live. Even 
at the last, I will be at the Palais de Justice — at the Greve. 
I have followers — I have interest. Come among the crowd 
that follow the victims — I shall see thee. It will be no 
worse for him, if she escapes ’ 

“ ‘ Save my master, and I will do all,’ said Jacques. 

“ ‘ Only on my one condition,’ said Morin doggedly ; and 
Jacques was hopeless of that condition ever being fulfilled. 
But he did not see why his own life might not be saved. By 
remaining in prison until the next day, he should have 
rendered every service in his power to his master and the 
young lady. He, poor fellow, shrank from death ; and he 
agreed with Morin to escape, if he could, by the means Morin 
had suggested, and to bring him word if Mademoiselle de 
Crequy relented. (Jacques had no expectation that she 
would; but I fancy he did not think it necessary to tell 
Morin of this conviction of his.) This bargaining with so 
base a man for so slight a thing as life, was the only flaw 
that I heard of in the old gardener’s behaviour. Of course, 
the mere re-opening of the subject was enough to stir Virginie 
to displeasure. Clement urged her, it is true ; but the light 
he had gained upon Morin’s motions made him rather try 
to set the case before her in as fair a manner as possible 
than use any persuasive arguments. And, even as it was, 
what he said on the subject made Virginie shed tears — the 
first that had fallen from her since she entered the prison. 
So, they were summoned and went together, at the fatal call 
of the muster-roll of victims the next morning. He, feeble 
from his wounds and his injured health ; she, calm and 
sferene, only petitioning to be allowed to walk next to him, 
in order that she might hold him up when he turned faint 
and giddy from his extreme suffering. 

“ Together they stood at the bar ; together they were 
condemned. As the words of judgment were pronounced, 
Virginie turned to Clement, and embraced him with 
passionate fondness. Then, making him lean on her, they 
marched out towards the Place de la Greve. 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ Jacques was free now. He had told Morin how fruit- 
less his efforts at persuasion had been ; and scarcely caring to 
note the effect of his information upon the man, he had 
devoted himself to watching Monsieur and Mademoiselle de 
Crequy. And now he followed them to the Place de la 
Greve. He saw them mount the platform ; saw them kneel 
down together till plucked up by the impatient officials ; 
could see that she was urging some request to the execu- 
tioner ; the end of which seemed to be, that Clement 
advanced first to the guillotine, was executed (and just at 
this moment there was a stir among the crowd, as of a man 
pressing forward towards the scaffold). Then she, standing 
with her face to the guillotine, slowly made the sign of the 
cross, and knelt down. 

“ Jacques covered his eyes, blinded with tears. The 
report of a pistol made him look up. She was gone — another 
victim in her place — and where there had been a little stir in 
the crowd not five minutes before, some men were carrying 
off a dead body. A man had shot himself, they said. Pierre 
told me who that man was.” 


CHAPTER IX 

After a pause, I ventured to ask what became of Madame 
de Crequy, Clement’s mother. 

“ She never made any inquiry about him,” said my lady. 
“ She must have known that he was dead ; though how, we 
never could tell. Medlicott remembered afterwards that it 
was about, if not on — Medlicott to this day declares that it was 
on the very Monday, June the nineteenth, when her son was 
executed, that Madame de Crequy left off her rouge and took 
to her bed, as one bereaved and hopeless. It certainly was 
about that time ; and Medlicott — who was deeply impressed 
by that dream of Madame de Crequy’s (the relation of which 

124 


My Lady Ludlow 

I told you had had such an effect on my lord), in which she 
had seen the figure of Virginie, as the only light object 
amid much surrounding darkness as of night, smiling and 
beckoning Clement on — on — till at length the bright phantom 
stopped, motionless, and Madame de Crequy’s eyes began to 
penetrate the murky darkness, and to see closing around her 
the gloomy dripping walls which she had once seen and 
never forgotten — the walls of the vault of the chapel of the 
De Crequys in Saint Germain l’Auxerrois ; and there the 
two last of the Crequys laid them down among their fore- 
fathers, and Madame de Crequy had wakened to the sound 
of the great door, which led to the open air, being locked 
upon her — I say Medlicott, who was predisposed by this 
dream to look out for the supernatural, always declared that 
Madame de Crequy was made conscious, in some mysterious 
way, of her son’s death, on the very day and hour when it 
occurred, and that after that she had no more anxiety, but 
was only conscious of a kind of stupefying despair.” 

“ And what became of her, my lady ? ” I again asked. 

“ What could become of her ? ” replied Lady Ludlow. 
“ She never could be induced to rise again, though she lived 
more than a year after her son’s departure. She kept her 
bed ; her room darkened, her face turned towards the wall, 
whenever any one besides Medlicott was in the room. She 
hardly ever spoke, and would have died of starvation but for 
Medlicott’ s tender care, in putting a morsel to her lips every 
now and then, feeding her in fact, just as an old bird feeds 
her young ones. In the height of summer my lord and I 
left London. We would fain have taken her with us into 
Scotland, but the doctor (we had the old doctor from Leicester 
Square) forbade her removal ; and this time he gave such 
good reasons against it that I acquiesced. Medlicott and a 
maid were left with her. Every care was taken of her. She 
survived till our return. Indeed, I thought she was in 
much the same state as I had left her in, when I came 
back to London. But Medlicott spoke of her as much 
weaker; and one morning, on awakening, they told me 

125 


My Lady Ludlow 

she was dead. I sent for Medlicott, who was in sad 
distress, she had become so fond of her charge. She 
said that, about two o’clock, she had been awakened by 
unusual restlessness on Madame de Crequy’s part ; that she 
had gone to her bedside, and found the poor lady feebly but 
perpetually moving her wasted arm up and down — and say- 
ing to herself in a wailing voice — “ I did not bless him when 
he left me — I did not bless him when he left me ! ” Medlicott 
gave her a spoonful or two of jelly, and sat by her, stroking 
her hand, and soothing her till she seemed to fall asleep. 
But in the morning she was dead.” 

“ It is a sad story, your ladyship,” said I, after a while. 

“ Yes, it is. People seldom arrive at my age without 
having watched the beginning, middle, and end of many 
lives and many fortunes. We do not talk about them, 
perhaps; for they are often so sacred to us, from having 
touched into the very quick of our own hearts, as it were, or 
into those of others who are dead and gone, and veiled over 
from human sight, that we cannot tell the tale as if it was 
a mere story. But young people should remember that we 
have had this solemn experience of life, on which to base our 
opinions and form our judgments, so that they are not mere 
untried theories. I am not alluding to Mr. Horner just now, 
for he is nearly as old as I am— within ten years, I dare say — 
but I am thinking of Mr. Gray, with his endless plans for 
some new thing — schools, education, Sabbaths, and what 
not. Now he has not seen what all this leads to.” 

“It is a pity he has not heard your ladyship tell the 
story of poor Monsieur de Crequy.” 

“Not at all a pity, my dear. A young man like him, 
who, both by position and age, must have had his experience 
confined to a very narrow circle, ought not to set up his 
opinion against mine ; he ought not to require reasons from 
me, nor to need such explanation of my arguments (if I 
condescend to argue), as going into relation of the circum- 
stances on which my arguments are based in my own mind 
would be.” 


126 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ But, my lady, it might convince him,” I said, with 
perhaps injudicious perseverance. 

“And why should he be convinced? ” she asked, with 
gentle inquiry in her tone. “ He has only to acquiesce. 
Though he is appointed by Mr. Croxton, I am the lady of 
the manor, as he must know. But it is with Mr. Horner 
that I must have to do about this unfortunate lad Gregson. 
I am afraid there will be no method of making him forget 
his unlucky knowledge. His poor brains will be intoxicated 
with the sense of his powers, without any counterbalancing 
principles to guide him. Poor fellow ! I am quite afraid 
it will end in his being hanged ! ” 

The next day Mr. Horner came to apologise and explain. 
He was evidently — as I could tell from his voice, as he spoke 
to my lady in the next room — extremely annoyed at her 
ladyship’s discovery of the education he had been giving to 
this boy. My lady spoke with great authority, and with 
reasonable grounds of complaint. Mr. Homer was well 
acquainted with her thoughts on the subject, and had acted 
in defiance of her wishes. He acknowledged as much, and 
should on no account have done it, in any other instance, 
without her leave. 

“ Which I could never have granted you,” said my lady. 

But this boy had extraordinary capabilities ; would, in 
fact, have taught himself much that was bad, if he had not 
been rescued, and another direction given to his powers. 
And in all Mr. Horner had done, he had had her ladyship’s 
service in view. The business was getting almost beyond 
his power, so many letters and so much account-keeping 
was required by the complicated state in which things 
were. 

Lady Ludlow felt what was coming — a reference to the 
mortgage for the benefit of my lord’s Scottish estates, which, 
she was perfectly aware, Mr. Horner considered as having 
been a most unwise proceeding — and she hastened to 
observe — 

“ All this may be very true, Mr. Horner, and I am sure 
127 


My Lady Ludlow 

I should be the last person to wish you to overwork or dis- 
tress yourself ; but of that we will talk another time. What 
I am now anxious to remedy is, if possible, the state of this 
poor little Gregson’s mind. Would not hard work in the 
fields be a wholesome and excellent way of enabling him to 
forget ? ” 

“ I was in hopes, my lady, that you would have permitted 
me to bring him up to act as a kind of clerk,” said Mr. 
Horner, jerking out his project abruptly. 

“ A what ? ” asked my lady, in infinite surprise. 

“ A kind of — of assistant, in the way of copying letters 
and doing up accounts. He is already an excellent penman 
and very quick at figures.” 

“ Mr. Horner,” said my lady, with dignity, “ the son of a 
poacher and vagabond ought never to have been able to copy 
letters relating to the Hanbury estates ; and, at any rate, he 
shall not. I wonder how it is that, knowing the use he has 
made of his power of reading a letter, you should venture to 
propose such an employment for him as would require his 
being in your confidence, and you the trusted agent of this 
family. Why, every secret (and every ancient and honour- 
able family has its secrets, as you know, Mr. Horner !) would 
be learnt off by heart, and repeated to tfie first comer ! ” 

“ I should have hoped to have trained him, my lady, to 
understand the rules of discretion.” 

“ Trained ! Train a barn-door fowl to be a pheasant, 
Mr. Horner ! That would be the easier task. But you did 
right to speak of discretion rather than honour. Discretion 
looks to the consequences of actions — honour looks to the 
action itself, and is an instinct rather than a virtue. After 
all, it is possible you might have trained him to be discreet.” 

Mr. Horner was silent. My lady was softened by his 
not replying, and began, as she always did in such cases, to 
fear lest she had been too harsh. I could tell that by her 
voice and by her next speech, as well as if I had seen her 
face. 

“ But I am sorry you are feeling the pressure of the 
128 


My Lady Ludlow 

affairs ; I am quite aware that I have entailed much ad- 
ditional trouble upon you by some of my measures : I must 
try and provide you with some suitable assistance. Copying 
letters and doing up accounts, I think you said ? ” 

Mr. Horner had certainly had a distant idea of turning 
the little boy, in process of time, into a clerk ; but he had 
rather urged this possibility of future usefulness beyond 
what he had at first intended, in speaking of it to my lady 
as a palliation of his offence ; and he certainly was very much 
inclined to retract his statement that the letter- writing, or 
any other business, had increased, or that he was in the 
slightest want of help of any kind, when my lady, after a 
pause of consideration, suddenly said — 

“ I have it. Miss Galindo will, I am sure, be glad to 
assist you. I will speak to her myself. The payment we 
should make to a clerk would be of real service to her ! ” 

I could hardly help echoing Mr. Horner’s tone of sur- 
prise as he said — 

“ Miss Galindo ! ” 

For, you must be told who Miss Galindo was ; at least, 
told as much as I know. Miss Galindo had lived in the 
village for many years, keeping house on the smallest 
possible means, yet always managing to maintain a servant. 
And this servant was invariably chosen because she had 
some infir mi ty that made her undesirable to every one else. 
I believe Miss Galindo had had lame and blind and hump- 
backed maids. She had even at one time taken in a girl 
hopelessly gone in consumption, because, if not, she would 
have had to go to the workhouse, and not have had enough 
to eat. Of course the poor creature could not perform a 
single duty usually required of a servant, and Miss Galindo 
herself was both servant and nurse. 

Her present maid was scarcely four feet high, and bore a 
terrible character for ill-temper. Nobody but Miss Galindo 
would have kept her ; but, as it was, mistress and servant 
squabbled perpetually, and were, at heart, the best of 
friends. For it was one of Miss Galindo’s peculiarities to do 

129 K 


My Lady Ludlow 

all manner of kind and self-denying actions, and to say all 
manner of provoking things. Lame, blind, deformed, and 
dwarf, all came in for scoldings without number ; it was 
only the consumptive girl that never had heard a sharp 
word. I don’t think any of her servants liked her the worse 
for her peppery temper, and passionate odd ways, for they 
knew her real and beautiful kindness of heart ; and, besides, 
she had so great a turn for humour, that very often her 
speeches amused as much or more than they irritated ; and, 
on the other side, a piece of witty impudence from her 
servant would occasionally tickle her so much and so 
suddenly, that she would burst out laughing in the middle 
of her passion. 

But the talk about Miss Galindo’s choice and manage- 
ment of her servants was confined to village gossip, and had 
never reached my Lady Ludlow’s ears, though doubtless Mr. 
Homer was well acquainted with it. What my lady knew 
of her amounted to this. It was the custom in those days 
for the wealthy ladies of the county to set on foot a reposi- 
tory, as it was called, in the assize- town. The ostensible 
manager of this repository was generally a decayed gentle- 
woman, a clergyman’s widow, or so forth. She was, 
however, controlled by a committee of ladies : and paid by 
them in proportion to the amount of goods she sold ; and 
these goods were the small manufactures of ladies of little or 
no fortune, whose names, if they chose it, were only signified 
by initials. 

Poor water-colour drawings, indigo and Indian ink, 
screens, ornamented with moss and dried leaves, paintings 
on velvet, and such faintly ornamental works, were displayed 
on one side of the shop. It was always reckoned a mark of 
characteristic gentility in the repository to have only common 
heavy-framed sash-windows, which admitted very little light ; 
so I never was quite certain of the merit of these Works of 
Art, as they were entitled. But, on the other side, where 
the Useful Work placard was put up, there was a great 
variety of articles, of whose unusual excellence every one 

130 


My Lady Ludlow 

might judge. Such fine sewing, and stitching, and button- 
holing ! Such bundles of soft delicate knitted stockings and 
socks ; and, above all, in Lady Ludlow’s eyes, such hanks of 
the finest spun flaxen thread ! 

And the most delicate dainty work of all was done by 
Miss Galindo, as Lady Ludlow very well knew. Yet, for all 
their fine sewing, it sometimes happened that Miss Galindo’s 
patterns were of an old-fashioned kind; and the dozen 
night-caps, may be, on the materials for which she had 
expended bona-fide money, and on the making-up, no little 
time and eyesight, would lie for months in a yellow neglected 
heap ; and at such times, it was said, Miss Galindo was more 
amusing than usual, more full of dry drollery and humour ; 
just as at the times when an order came in to X. (the initial 
she had chosen) for a stock of well-paying things, she sat 
and stormed at her servant as she stitched away. She 
herself explained her practice in this way — 

“ When everything goes wrong, one would give up 
breathing if one could not lighten one’s heart by a joke. But 
when I’ve to sit still from morning till night, I must have 
something to stir my blood, or I should go off into an 
apoplexy; so I set to, and quarrel with Sally.” 

Such were Miss Galindo’s means and manner of living in 
her own house. Out of doors, and in the village, she was 
not popular, although she would have been sorely missed 
had she left the place. But she asked too many home 
questions (not to say impertinent) respecting the domestic 
economies (for even the very poor liked to spend their bit of 
money their own way), and would open cupboards to find 
out hidden extravagances, and question closely respecting the 
weekly amount of butter; till one day she met with what 
would have been a rebuff to any other person, but was by her 
rather enjoyed than otherwise. 

She was going into a cottage, and in the doorway met 
the good woman chasing out a duck, and apparently uncon- 
scious of her visitor. 

“ Get out, Miss Galindo ! ” she cried, addressing the 


My Lady Ludlow 

duck. “ Get out ! Oh, I ask your pardon,” she continued, 
as if seeing the lady for the first time. “ It’s only that 

weary duck will come in. Get out, Miss Gal ” (to the 

duck). 

“And so you call it after me, do you?” inquired her 
visitor. 

“ Oh, yes, ma’am ; my master would have it so ; for, he 
said, sure enough the unlucky bird was always poking 
herself where she was not wanted.” 

“ Ha, ha ! very good ! And so your master is a wit, is 
he ? Well ! tell him to come up and speak to me to-night 
about my parlour chimney ; for there is no one like him for 
chimney doctoring.” 

And the master went up, and was so won over by Miss 
Galindo’s merry ways, and sharp insight into the mysteries 
of his various kinds of business (he was a mason, chimney- 
sweeper, and ratcatcher), that he came home and abused his 
wife the next time she called the duck the name by which he 
himself had christened her. 

But, odd as Miss Galindo was in general, she could be as 
well-bred a lady as any one when she chose. And choose 
she always did when my Lady Ludlow was by. Indeed, I 
don’t know the man, woman, or child, that did not instinc- 
tively turn out its best side to her ladyship. So she had no 
notion of the qualities which, I am sure, made Mr. Horner 
think that Miss Galindo would be most unmanageable as a 
clerk, and heartily wish that the idea had never come into 
my lady’s head. But there it was, and he had annoyed her 
ladyship already more than he liked to-day ; so he could not 
directly contradict her, but only urge difficulties which he 
hoped might prove insuperable. But every one of them 
Lady Ludlow knocked down. ‘ ‘ Letters to copy ? ’ ’ Doubtless. 
Miss Galindo could come up to the Hall ; she should have a 
room to herself; she wrote a beautiful hand; and writing 
would save her eyesight. “ Capability with regard to 
accounts ? ” My lady would answer for that too ; and for 
more than Mr. Horner seemed to think it necessary to 

132 


My Lady Ludlow 

inquire about. Miss Galindo was by birth and breeding a 
lady of the strictest honour, and would, if possible, forget the 
substance of any letters that passed through her hands : at 
any rate, no one would ever hear of them again from her. 
“ Eemuneration ? ” Oh ! as for that, Lady Ludlow would 
herself take care that it was managed in the most delicate 
manner possible. She would send to invite Miss Galindo to 
tea at the Hall that very afternoon, if Mr. Horner would only 
give her ladyship the slightest idea of the average length of 
time that my lady was to request Miss Galindo to sacrifice 
to her daily. “ Three hours ? Very well." Mr. Horner 
looked very grave as he passed the windows of the room 
where I lay. I don’t think he liked the idea of Miss Galindo 
as a clerk. 

Lady Ludlow’s invitations were like royal commands. 
Indeed, the village was too quiet to allow the inhabitants 
to have many evening engagements of any kind. Now and 
then, Mr. and Mrs. Horner gave a tea and supper to the 
principal tenants and their wives, to which the clergyman 
was invited, and Miss Galindo, Mrs. Medlicott, and one or 
two other spinsters and widows. The glory of the supper- 
table on these occasions was invariably furnished by her 
ladyship : it was a cold roasted peacock, with his tail stuck 
out as if in life. Mrs. Medlicott would take up the whole 
morning arranging the feathers in the proper semicircle, 
and was always pleased with the wonder and admiration 
it excited. It was considered a due reward and fitting 
compliment to her exertions that Mr. Horner always took 
her in to supper, and placed her opposite to the magnificent 
dish, at which she sweetly smiled all the time they were 
at table. But since Mrs. Horner had had the paralytic 
stroke these parties had been given up ; and Miss Galindo 
wrote a note to Lady Ludlow in reply to her invitation, 
saying that she was entirely disengaged, and would have 
great pleasure in doing herself the honour of waiting upon 
her ladyship. 

Whoever visited my lady took their meals with her, 
133 


My Lady Ludlow 

sitting on the dais, in the presence of all my former com- 
panions. So I did not see Miss Galindo until some time 
after tea ; as the young gentlewomen had had to bring her 
their sewing and spinning, to hear the remarks of so com- 
petent a judge. At length her ladyship brought her visitor 
into the room where I lay — it was one of my bad days, I 
remember — in order to have her little bit of private con- 
versation. Miss Galindo was dressed in her best gown, 
I am sure, but I had never seen anything like it except 
in a picture, it was so old-fashioned. She wore a white 
muslin apron, delicately embroidered, and put on a little 
crookedly, in order, as she told us, even Lady Ludlow, before 
the evening was over, to conceal a spot whence the colour 
had been discharged by a lemon-stain. This crookedness 
had an odd effect, especially when I saw that it was inten- 
tional ; indeed, she was so anxious about her apron’s right 
adjustment in the wrong place, that she told us straight 
out why she wore it so, and asked her ladyship if the spot 
was properly hidden, at the same time lifting up her apron 
and showing her how large it was. 

“ When my father was alive, I always took his right 
arm, so, and used to remove any spotted or discoloured 
breadths to the left side, if it was a walking- dress. That’s 
the convenience of a gentleman. But widows and spinsters 
must do what they can. Ah, my dear ! ” (to me) “ when you 
are reckoning up the blessings in your lot — though you 
may think it a hard one in some respects — don’t forget 
how little your stockings want darning, as you are obliged 
to lie down so much ! I would rather knit two pairs of 
stockings than darn one, any day.” 

“ Have you been doing any of your beautiful knitting 
lately?” asked my lady, who had now arranged Miss 
Galindo in the pleasantest chair, and taken her own little 
wicker-work one, and, having her work in her hands, was 
ready to try and open the subject. 

“ No, and alas ! your ladyship. It is partly the hot 
weather’s fault, for people seem to forget that winter must 

134 


My Lady Ludlow 

come ; and partly, I suppose, that every one is stocked who 
has the money to pay four-and-sixpence a pair for stockings.” 

“ Then may I ask if you have any time in your active 
days at liberty?” said my lady, drawing a little nearer to 
her proposal, which I fancy she found it a little awkward to 
make. 

“ Why, the village keeps me busy, your ladyship, when 
I have neither knitting nor sewing to do. You know I took 
X. for my letter at the repository, because it stands for 
Xantippe, who was a great scold in old times, as I have 
learnt. But I’m sure I don’t know how the world would 
get on without scolding, your ladyship. It would go to 
sleep, and the sun would stand still.” 

“ I don’t think I could bear to scold, Miss Galindo,” 
said her ladyship, smiling. 

“ No ! because your ladyship has people to do it for you. 
Begging your pardon, my lady, it seems to me the generality 
of people may be divided into saints, scolds, and sinners. 
Now, your ladyship is a saint, because you have a sweet 
and holy nature, in the first place ; and have people to do 
your anger and vexation for you, in the second place. And 
Jonathan Walker is a sinner, because he is sent to prison. 
But here am I, half way, having but a poor kind of dis- 
position at best, and yet hating sin, and all that leads to 
it, such as wasting, and extravagance, and gossiping — and 
yet all this lies right under my nose in the village, and 
I am not saint enough to be vexed at it; and so I scold. 
And though I had rather be a saint, yet I think I do good 
in my way.” 

“No doubt you do, dear Miss Galindo,” said Lady 
Ludlow. “ But I am sorry to hear that there is so much 
that is bad going on in the village — very sorry.” 

“ Oh, your ladyship ! then I am sorry I brought it out. 
It was only by way of saying, that when I have no par- 
ticular work to do at home, I take a turn abroad, and set 
my neighbours to rights, just by way of steering clear of 
Satan. 

135 


My Lady Ludlow 

‘ For Satan finds some mischief still 
For idle hands to do,’ 

you know, my lady.” 

There was no leading into the subject by delicate degrees, 
for Miss Galindo was evidently so fond of talking that, if 
asked a question, she made her answer so long that before 
she came to an end of it, she had wandered far away from 
the original starting-point. So Lady Ludlow plunged at 
once into what she had to say. 

“ Miss Galindo, I have a great favour to ask of you.” 

“ My lady, I wish I could tell you what a pleasure it is 
to hear you say so,” replied Miss Galindo, almost with tears 
in her eyes; so glad were we all to do anything for her 
ladyship, which could be called a free service and not merely 
a duty. 

“It is this. Mr. Horner tells me that the business- 
letters, relating to the estate, are multiplying so much that 
he finds it impossible to copy them all himself ; and I there- 
fore require the services of some confidential and discreet 
person to copy these letters, and occasionally to go through 
certain accounts. Now, there is a very pleasant little 
sitting-room very near to Mr. Horner’s office (you know 
Mr. Horner’s office — on the other side of the stone hall ?) — 
and, if I could prevail upon you to come here to breakfast 
and afterwards sit there for three hours every morning, Mr. 
Horner should bring or send you the papers ” 

Lady Ludlow stopped. Miss Galindo’s countenance had 
fallen. There was some great obstacle in her mind to her 
wish for obliging Lady Ludlow. 

“ What would Sally do ? ” she asked at length. Lady 
Ludlow had not a notion who Sally was. Nor, if she had 
had a notion, would she have had a conception of the 
perplexities that poured into Miss Galindo’s mind, at the 
idea of leaving her rough, forgetful dwarf, without the per- 
petual monitorship of her mistress. Lady Ludlow, accus- 
tomed to a household where everything went on noiselessly, 
perfectly, and by clock-work, conducted by a number of 

136 


My Lady Ludlow 

highly-paid, well-chosen, and accomplished servants, had 
not a conception of the nature of the rough material from 
which her servants came. Besides, in her establishment, 
so that the result was good, no one inquired if the small 
economies had been observed in the production. Whereas 
every penny — every halfpenny — was of consequence to Miss 
Galindo; and visions of squandered drops of milk and 
wasted crusts of bread filled her mind with dismay. But 
she swallowed all her apprehensions down, out of her re- 
gard for Lady Ludlow, and desire to be of service to her. 
No one knows how great a trial it was to her when she 
thought of Sally, unchecked and unscolded for three hours 
every morning. But all she said was — 

“ ‘ Sally, go to the Deuce.’ I beg your pardon, my lady, 
if I was talking to myself; it’s a habit I have got into of 
keeping my tongue in practice, and I am not quite aware 
when I do it. Three hours every morning ! I shall be 
only too proud to do what I can for your ladyship ; and 
I hope Mr. Horner will not be too impatient with me at 
first. You know, perhaps, that I was nearly being an 
authoress once, and that seems as if I was destined to 
* employ my time in writing.’ ” 

“No, indeed ; we must return to the subject of the 
clerkship afterwards, if you please. An authoress, Miss 
Galindo ! You surprise me ! ” 

“ But, indeed, I was. All was quite ready. Doctor 
Burney used to teach me music : not that I ever could 
learn, but it was a fancy of my poor father’s. And his 
daughter wrote a book, and they said she was but a very 
young lady, and nothing but a music-master’s daughter; 
so why should not I try ? ” 

“ Well ? ” 

“ Well ! I got paper and half-a-hundred good pens, a 

bottle of ink, all ready ” 

“ And then ” 

“ Oh, it ended in my having nothing to say, when I sat 
down to write. But sometimes, when I get hold of a book, 

137 


My Lady Ludlow 

I wonder why I let such a poor reason stop me. It does 
not others.” 

“But I think it was very well it did, Miss Galindo,” 
said her ladyship. “ I am extremely against women usurp- 
ing men’s employments, as they are very apt to do. But 
perhaps, after all, the notion of writing a book improved 
your hand. It is one of the most legible I ever saw.” 

U I despise z’s without tails,” said Miss Galindo, with 
a good deal of gratified pride at my lady’s praise. Presently, 
my lady took her to look at a curious old cabinet, which 
Lord Ludlow had picked up at the Hague ; and, while they 
were out of the room on this errand, I suppose the question 
of remuneration was settled, for I heard no more of it. 

When they came back, they were talking of Mr. Gray. 
Miss Galindo was unsparing in her expressions of opinion 
about him : going much farther than my lady — in her 
language, at least. 

“ A little blushing man like him, who can’t say bo to a 
goose without hesitating and colouring, to come to this 
village — which is as good a village as ever lived — and cry 
us down for a set of sinners, as if we had all committed 
murder and that other thing ! — I have no patience with him, 
my lady. And then, how is he to help us to heaven, by 
teaching us our a b, ab — b a, ba ? And yet, by all accounts, 
that’s to save poor children’s souls. Oh, I knew your lady- 
ship would agree with me. I am sure my mother was as 
good a creature as ever breathed the blessed air ; and if she’s 
not gone to heaven I don’t want to go there : and she could 
not spell a letter decently. And does Mr. Gray think God 
took note of that ? ” 

“ I was sure you would agree with me, Miss Galindo,” 
said my lady. “You and I can remember how this talk 
about education — Rousseau, and his writings— stirred up 
the French people to their Reign of Terror, and all those 
bloody scenes.” 

“ I’m afraid that Rousseau and Mr. Gray are birds of a 
feather,” replied Miss Galindo, shaking her head. “And 

138 


My Lady Ludlow 

yet there is some good in the young man too. He sat up all 
night with Billy Davis, when his wife was fairly worn out 
with nursing him.” 

“ Did he, indeed? ” said my lady, her face lighting up, as 
it always did when she heard of any kind or generous action, 
no matter who performed it. “ What a pity he is bitten with 
these new revolutionary ideas, and is so much for disturbing 
the established order of society ! ” 

When Miss Galindo went, she left so favourable an 
impression of her visit on my lady, that she said to me with 
a pleased smile — 

“ I think I have provided Mr. Horner with a far better 
clerk than he would have made of that lad Gregson in 
twenty years. And I will send the lad to my lord’s grieve, 
in Scotland, that he may be kept out of harm’s way.” 

But something happened to the lad before this purpose 
could be accomplished. 


CHAPTER X 

The next morning, Miss Galindo made her appearance, and, 
by some mistake, unusual to my lady’s well-trained servants, 
was shown into the room where I was trying to walk ; for a 
certain amount of exercise was prescribed for me, painful 
although the exertion had become. 

She brought a little basket along with her ; and, while 
the footman was gone to inquire my lady’s wishes (for I 
don’t think that Lady Ludlow expected Miss Galindo so 
soon to assume her clerkship ; nor, indeed, had Mr. Horner 
any work of any kind ready for his new assistant to do), she 
launched out into conversation with me. 

“ It was a sudden summons, my dear ! However, as I 
have often said to myself, ever since an occasion long ago : 
if Lady Ludlow ever honours me by asking for my right 

139 


My Lady Ludlow 

hand, I’ll cut it off, and wrap the stump up so tidily she 
shall never find out 'it bleeds. But, if I had had a little 
more time, I could have mended my pens better. You see, 
I have had to sit up pretty late to get these sleeves made” — 
and she took out of her basket a pair of brown-holland over- 
sleeves, very much such as a grocer’s apprentice wears — 
“ and I had only time to make seven or eight pens, out of 
some quills Father Thomson gave me last autumn. As for 
ink, I’m thankful to say, that’s always ready : an ounce of 
steel filings, an ounce of nut-gall, and a pint of water (tea, if 
you’re extravagant, which, thank Heaven ! I’m not) ; put all 
in a bottle, and hang it up behind the house door, so that 
the whole gets a good shaking every time you slam it to — 
and even if you are in a passion and bang it, as Sally and I 
often do, it is all the better for it — and there’s my ink ready 
for use ; ready to write my lady’s will with, if need be.” 

“ Oh, Miss Galindo ! ” said I, “ don’t talk so ; my lady’s 
will ! and she not dead yet.” 

“ And if she were, what would be the use of talking of 
making her will? Now, if you were Sally, I should say, 
‘ Answer me that, you goose ! ’ But, as you’re a relation of 
my lady’s, I must be civil, and only say, ‘ I can’t think how 
you can talk so like a fool ! ’ To be sure, poor thing, you’re 
lame ! ” 

I do not know how long she would have gone on ; but 
my lady came in, and I, released from my duty of entertain- 
ing Miss Galindo, made my limping way into the next room. 
To tell the truth, I was rather afraid of Miss Galindo’s 
tongue, for I never knew what she would say next. 

After a while my lady came in, and began to look in the 
bureau for something : and as she looked she said — 

“ I think Mr. Horner must have made some mistake, 
when he said he had so much work that he almost required 
a clerk, for this morning he cannot find anything for Miss 
Galindo to do ; and there she is, sitting with her pen behind 
her ear, waiting for something to write. I am come to find 
her my mother’s letters, for I should like to have a fair copy 

140 


My Lady Ludlow 

made of them. Oh, here they are : don’t trouble yourself, 
my dear child.” 

When my lady returned again, she sat down and began 
to talk of Mr. Gray. 

“ Miss Galindo says she saw him going to hold a prayer- 
meeting in a cottage. Now that really makes me unhappy, 
it is so like what Mr. Wesley used to do in my younger 
days ; and since then we have had rebellion in the American 
colonies and the French Revolution. You may depend upon 
it, my dear, making religion and education common — 
vulgarising them, as it were — is a bad thing for a nation. A 
man who hears prayers read in the cottage where he has 
just supped on bread and bacon, forgets the respect due to a 
church : he begins to think that one place is as good as 
another, and, by-and-by, that one person is as good as 
another ; and, after that, I always find that people begin to 
talk of their rights, instead of thinking of their duties. I 
wish Mr. Gray had been more tractable, and had left well 
alone. What do you think I heard this morning? Why, 
that the Home Hill estate, which niches into the Hanbury 
property, was bought by a Baptist baker from Birmingham ! ” 

“ A Baptist baker ! ” I exclaimed. I had never seen a 
Dissenter, to my knowledge ; but, having always heard them 
spoken of with horror, I looked upon them almost as if 
they were rhinoceroses. I wanted to see a live Dissenter, 
I believe, and yet I wished it were over. I was almost 
surprised when I heard that any of them were engaged in 
such peaceful occupations as baking. 

“ Yes ! so Mr. Homer tells me. A Mr. Lambe, I believe. 
But, at any rate, he is a Baptist, and has been in trade. 
What with his schismatism and Mr. Gray’s methodism, I 
am afraid all the primitive character of this place will 
vanish.” 

From what I could hear, Mr. Gray seemed to be taking 
his own way ; at any rate, more than he had done when he 
first came to the village, when his natural timidity had made 
him defer to my lady, and seek her consent and sanction 

141 


My Lady Ludlow 

before embarking in any new plan. But newness was 
a quality Lady Ludlow especially disliked. Even in the 
fashions of dress and furniture, she clung to the old, to the 
modes which had prevailed when she was young ; and, though 
she had a deep personal regard for Queen Charlotte (to whom, 
as I have already said, she had been maid-of-honour), yet 
there was a tinge of Jacobitism about her, such as made her 
extremely dislike to hear Prince Charles Edward called the 
young Pretender, as many loyal people did in those days, 
and made her fond of telling of the thorn-tree in my lord’s 
park in Scotland, which had been planted by bonny Queen 
Mary herself, and before which every guest in the Castle of 
Monkshaven was expected to stand bare-headed, out of 
respect to the memory and misfortunes of the royal planter. 

We might play at cards, if we chose, on a Sunday; at 
least, I suppose we might, for my lady and Mr. Mountford 
used to do so often when I first went. But we must neither 
play cards, nor read, nor sew, on the fifth of November and 
on the thirtieth of January, but must go to church, and 
meditate all the rest of the day — and very hard work medi- 
tating was. I would far rather have scoured a room. That 
was the reason, I suppose, why a passive life was seen to 
be better discipline for me than an active one. 

But I am wandering away from my lady, and her dislike 
to all innovation. Now, it seemed to me, as far as I heard, 
that Mr. Gray was full of nothing but new things, and that 
what he first did was to attack all our established institu- 
tions, both in the village and the parish, and also in the 
nation. To be sure, I heard of his ways of going on princi- 
pally from Miss Galindo, who was apt to speak more strongly 
than accurately. 

“ There he goes,” she said, “ clucking up the children just 
like an old hen, and trying to teach them about their salvation 
and their souls, and I don’t know what — things that it is just 
blasphemy to speak about out of church. And he potters old 
people about reading their Bibles. I am sure I don’t want to 
speak disrespectfully about the Holy Scriptures, but I found 

142 


My Lady Ludlow 

old Job Horton busy reading his Bible yesterday. Says I, 
‘ What are you reading, and where did you get it, and who 
gave it you ? ’ So he made answer, ‘ That he was reading 
Susannah and the Elders, for that he had read Bel and the 
Dragon till he could pretty near say it off by heart ; and they 
were two as pretty stories as ever he had read, and that it 
was a caution to him what bad old chaps there were in the 
world.’ Now, as Job is bedridden, I don’t think he is likely 
to meet with the Elders; and I say that I think repeating 
his Creed, the Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer, and, 
may be, throwing in a verse of the Psalms, if he wanted a 
bit of a change, would have done him far more good than 
his pretty stories, as he called them. And what’s the next 
thing our young parson does ? Why, he tries to make us 
all feel pitiful for the black slaves, and leaves little pictures 
of negroes about, with the question printed below, ‘Am I 
not a man and a brother ? ’ just as if I was to be hail-fellow- 
well-met with every negro footman. They do say he takes 
no sugar in his tea, because he thinks he sees spots of blood 
in it. Now I call that superstition.” 

The next day it was a still worse story. 

“ Well, my dear ! and how are you ? My lady sent me 
in to sit a bit with you, while Mr. Horner looks out some 
papers for me to copy. Between ourselves, Mr. Steward 
Horner does not like having me for a clerk. It is all very 
well he does not ; for, if he were decently civil to me, I 
might want a chaperon, you know, now poor Mrs. Horner 
is dead.” This was one of Miss Galindo’s grim jokes. “ As 
it is, I try to make him forget I’m a woman ; I do everything 
as ship-shape as a masculine man-clerk. I see he can’t find 
a fault — writing good, spelling correct, sums all right. And 
then he squints up at me with the tail of his eye, and looks 
glummer than ever, just because I’m a woman — as if I could 
help that. I have gone good lengths to set his mind at ease. 
I have stuck my pen behind my ear ; I have made him a bow 
instead of a curtsey ; I have whistled — not a tune, I can’t pipe 
up that — nay, if you won’t tell my lady, I don’t mind telling 

143 


My Lady Ludlow 

you that I have said ‘ Confound it ! ’ and * Zounds ! * I can’t 
get any farther. For all that, Mr. Horner won’t forget I 
am a lady ; and so I am not half the use I might be, and, if 
it were not to please my Lady Ludlow, Mr. Horner and his 
books might go hang (see how natural that came out !). 
And there is an order for a dozen nightcaps for a bride, and 
I am so afraid I shan’t have time to do them. Worst of all, 
there’s Mr. Gray taking advantage of my absence to seduce 
Sally ! ” 

“ To seduce Sally ! Mr. Gray ! ” 

“ Pooh, pooh, child ! There’s many a kind of seduction. 
Mr. Gray is seducing Sally to want to go to church. There 
has he been twice at my house, while I have been away in 
the mornings, talking to Sally about the state of her soul 
and that sort of thing. But when I found the meat all 
roasted to a cinder, I said, * Come, Sally, let’s have no more 
praying when beef is down at the fire. Pray at six o’clock 
in the morning and nine at night, and I won’t hinder you.’ 
So she sauced me, and said something about Martha and 
Mary, implying that, because she had let the beef get so 
overdone that I declare I could hardly find a bit for Nancy 
Pole’s sick grandchild, she had chosen the better part. I 
was very much put about, I own, and perhaps you’ll be 
shocked at what I said — indeed, I don’t know if it was right 
myself — but I told her I had a soul as well as she, and, if it 
was to be saved by my sitting still and thinking about salva- 
tion and never doing my duty, I thought I had as good a 
right as she had to be Mary, and save my soul. So, that 
afternoon, I sat quite still, and it was really a comfort, for I 
am often too busy, I know, to pray as I ought. There is first 
one person wanting me, and then another, and the house 
and the food and the neighbours to see after. So, when tea- 
time comes, there enters my maid with her hump on her 
back, and her soul to be saved. * Please, ma’am, did you 
order the pound of butter ? ’ — ‘ No, Sally,’ I said, shaking 
my head, ‘this morning I did not go round by Hale’s farm, 
and this afternoon I have been employed in spiritual things.’ 

J 44 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ Now, our Sally likes tea and bread-and-butter above 
everything, and dry bread was not to her taste. 

“ ‘ I’m thankful,’ said the- impudent hussy, ‘ that you 
have taken a turn towards godliness. It will be my prayers, 
I trust, that’s given it you.’ 

“ I was determined not to give her an opening towards 
the carnal subject of butter ; so she lingered still, longing to 
ask leave to run for it. But I gave her none, and munched 
my dry bread myself, thinking what a famous cake I could 
make for little Ben Pole with the bit of butter we were 
saving ; and, when Sally had had her butterless tea, and 
was in none of the best of tempers because Martha had not 
bethought herself of the butter, I just quietly said — 

“ ‘ Now, Sally, to-morrow we’ll try to hash that beef well, 
and to remember the butter, and to work out our salvation all 
at the same time, for I don’t see why it can’t all be done, as 
God has set us to do it alL’ But I heard her at it again about 
Mary and Martha, and I have no doubt that Mr. Gray will 
teach her to consider me a lost sheep.” 

I had heard so many little speeches about Mr. Gray from 
one person or another, all speaking against him, as a mischief- 
maker, a setter-up of new doctrines and of a fanciful standard 
of life (and you may be sure that, where Lady Ludlow led, 
Mrs. Medlicott and Adams were certain to follow, each in their 
different way showing the influence my lady had over them), 
that I believe I had grown to consider him as a very instru- 
ment of evil, and to expect to perceive in his face marks of 
his presumption, and arrogance, and impertinent interference. 
It was now many weeks since I had seen him, and, when he 
was one morning shown into the blue drawing-room (into 
which I had been removed for a change), I was quite sur- 
prised to see how innocent and awkward a young man he 
appeared, confused even more than I was at our unexpected 
tete-a-tete. He looked thinner, his eyes more eager, his 
expression more anxious, and his colour came and went 
more than it had done when I had seen him last. I tried to 
make a little conversation, as I was, to my own surprise, 

i45 L 


My Lady Ludlow 

more at my ease than he was ; but his thoughts were evi- 
dently too much preoccupied for him to do more than answer 
me with monosyllables. 

Presently my lady came in. Mr. Gray twitched and 
coloured more than ever ; but plunged into the middle of his 
subject at once. 

“ My lady, I cannot answer it to my conscience, if I allow 
the children of this village to go on any longer the little 
heathens that they are. I must do something to alter their 
condition. I am quite aware that your ladyship disapproves 
of many of the plans which have suggested themselves to 
me ; but nevertheless I must do something, and I am come 
now to your ladyship to ask respectfully, but firmly, what 
you would advise me to do.” 

His eyes were dilated, and I could almost have said they 
were full of tears with his eagerness. But I am sure it 
is a bad plan to remind people of decided opinions which 
they have once expressed, if you wish them to modify those 
opinions. Now, Mr. Gray had done this with my lady ; and, 
though I do not mean to say she was obstinate, yet she was 
not one to retract. 

She was silent for a moment or two before she replied. 

“You ask me to suggest a remedy for an evil of the 
existence of which I am not conscious,” was her answer — 
very coldly, very gently given. “ In Mr. Mountford’s time 
I heard no such • complaints ; whenever I see the village 
children (and they are not unfrequent visitors at this house, 
on one pretext or another), they are well and decently 
behaved.” 

“ Oh, madam, you cannot judge,” he broke in. “ They 
are trained to respect you in word and deed ; you are the 
highest they ever look up to ; they have no notion of a 
higher.” 

“Nay, Mr. Gray,” said my lady, smiling, “ they are as 
loyally disposed as any children can be. They come up here 
every fourth of June, and drink his Majesty’s health, and 
have buns, and (as Margaret Dawson can testify) they take 

146 


My Lady Ludlow 

a great and respectful interest in all the pictures I can show 
them of the royal family.” 

“ But, madam, I think of something higher than any 
earthly dignities.” 

My lady coloured at the mistake she had made ; for she 
herself was truly pious. Yet, when she resumed the subject, 
it seemed to me as if her tone was a little sharper than 
before. 

“ Such want of reverence is, I should say, the clergy- 
man’s fault. You must excuse me, Mr. Gray, if I speak 
plainly.” 

“ My lady, I want plain-speaking. I myself am not 
accustomed to those ceremonies and forms which are, I 
suppose, the etiquette in your ladyship’s rank of life, and 
which seem to hedge you in from any power of mine to 
touch you. Among those with whom I have passed my life 
hitherto, it has been the custom to speak plainly out what 
we have felt earnestly. So, instead of needing any apology 
from your ladyship for straightforward speaking, I will meet 
'what you say at once, and admit that it is the clergyman’s 
fault, in a great measure, when the children of his parish 
swear, and curse, and are brutal, and ignorant of all saving 
grace ; nay, some of them of the very name of God. And 
because this guilt of mine, as the cleryman of this parish, 
lies heavy on my soul, and every day leads but from bad to 
worse, till I am utterly bewildered how to do good to children 
who escape from me as if I were a monster, and who are 
growing up to be men fit for and capable of any crime, but 
one requiring wit or sense, I come to you, who seem to me 
all-powerful as far as material power goes — for your ladyship 
only knows the surface of things, and barely that, that pass 
in your village — to help me with advice, and such outward 
help as you can give.” 

Mr. Gray had stood up and sat down once or twice while 
he had been speaking, in an agitated, nervous kind of way ; 
and now he was interrupted by a violent fit of coughing, 
after which he trembled all over. 

i47 


My Lady Ludlow 

My lady rang for a glass of water, and looked much 
distressed. 

“ Mr. Gray,” said she, “lam sure you are not well ; and 
that makes you exaggerate childish faults into positive evils. 
It is always the case with us when we are not strong in 
health. I hear of your exerting yourself in every direction-: 
you overwork yourself, and the consequence is, that you 
imagine us all worse people than we are.” 

And my lady smiled very kindly and pleasantly at him, 
as he sat, a little panting, a little flushed, trying to recover 
his breath. I am sure that, now they were brought face to 
face, she had quite forgotten all the offence she had taken 
at his doings when she heard of them from others ; and, 
indeed, it was enough to soften any one’s heart to see that 
young, almost boyish face, looking in such anxiety and 
distress. 

“ Oh, my lady, what shall I do ? ” he asked, as soon as 
he could recover breath, and with such an air of humility 
that I am sure no one who had seen it could have ever 
thought him conceited again. “ The evil of this world is 
too strong for me. I can do so little. It is all in vain. 

It was only to-day” and again the cough and agitation 

returned. 

“ My dear Mr. Gray,” said my lady (the day before, I 
could never have believed she could have called him “ my 
dear ”), “ you must take the advice of an old woman about 
yourself. You are not fit to do anything just now but attend 
to your own health : rest, and see a doctor (but, indeed, I 
will take care of that) ; and, when you are pretty strong again, 
you will find that you have been magnifying evils to 
yourself.” 

“ But, my lady, I cannot rest. The evils do exist, and 
the burden of their continuance lies on my shoulders. I 
have no place to gather the children together in, that I may 
teach them the things necessary to salvation. The rooms in 
my own house are too small ; but I have tried them. I have 
money of my own ; and, as your ladyship knows, I tried to 

148 


My Lady Ludlow 

get a piece of leasehold property on which to build a school- 
house at my own expense. Your ladyship’s lawyer comes 
forward, at your instructions, to enforce some old feudal 
right, by which no building is allowed on leasehold property 
without the sanction of the lady of the manor. It may be 
all very true ; but it was a cruel thing to do — that is, if your 
ladyship had known (which I am sure you do not) the real 
moral and spiritual state of my poor parishioners. And now 
I come to you to know what I am to do. Rest ! I cannot 
rest, while children whom I could possibly save are being 
left in their ignorance, their blasphemy, their uncleanness, 
their cruelty. It is known through the village that your 
ladyship disapproves of my efforts, and opposes all my 
plans. If you think them wrong, foolish, ill-digested (I have 
been a student, living in a college, and eschewing all society 
but that of pious men, until now : I may not judge for the 
best, in my ignorance of this sinful human nature), tell me 
of better plans and wiser projects for accomplishing my end; 
but do not bid me rest, with Satan compassing me round, 
and stealing souls away.” 

“ Mr. Gray,” said my lady, “ there may be some truth in 
what you have said. I do not deny it, though I think, in 
your present state of indisposition and excitement, you 
exaggerate it much. I believe — nay, the experience of a 
pretty long life has convinced me — that education is a bad 
thing, if given indiscriminately. It unfits the lower orders 
for their duties, the duties to which they are called by God ; 
of submission to those placed in authority over them ; of 
contentment with that state of life to which it has pleased 
God to call them, and of ordering themselves lowly and 
reverently to all their betters. I have made this conviction 
of mine tolerably evident to you, and have expressed 
distinctly my disapprobation of some of your ideas. You 
may imagine, then, that I was not well pleased when I found 
that you had taken a rood or more of Farmer Hale’s land, 
and were laying the foundations of a school-house. You 
had done this without asking for my permission, which, as 

149 


My Lady Ludlow 

Farmer Hale’s liege lady, ought to have been obtained 
legally, as well as asked for out of courtesy. I put a stop to 
what I believed to be calculated to do barm to a village, to 
a population, in which, to say the least of it, I may be dis- 
posed to take as much interest as you can do. How can 
reading, and writing, and the multiplication-table (if you 
choose to go so far), prevent blasphemy, and uncleanness, 
and cruelty? Eeally, Mr. Gray, I hardly like to express 
myself so strongly on the subject in your present state of 
health, as I should do at any other time. It seems to me 
that books do little ; character much ; and character is not 
formed from books.” 

“ I do not think of character : I think of souls. I must 
get some hold upon these children, or what will become of 
them in the next world ? I must be found to have some 
power beyond what they have, and which they are rendered 
capable of appreciating, before they will listen to me. At 
present physical force is all they look up to ; and I have 
none.” 

“Nay, Mr. Gray, by your own admission, they look up 
to me.” 

“ They would not do anything your ladyship disliked if it 
was likely to come to your knowledge ; but, if they could 
conceal it from you, the knowledge of your dislike to a par- 
ticular line of conduct would never make them cease from 
pursuing it.” 

“ Mr. Gray ” — surprise in her air, and some little indig- 
nation — “ they and their fathers have lived on the Hanbury 
lands for generations ! ” 

“ I cannot help it, madam. I am telling you the truth, 
whether you believe me or not.” There was a pause ; my 
lady looked perplexed, and somewhat ruffled ; Mr. Gray as 
though hopeless and wearied out. “ Then, my lady,” said 
he at last, rising as he spoke, “ you can suggest nothing to 
ameliorate the state of things which, I do assure you, does 
exist on your lands, and among your tenants. Surely, you 
will not object to my using Farmer Hale’s great barn every 

i5° 


My Lady Ludlow 

Sabbath ? He will allow me the use of it, if your ladyship 
will grant your permission.” 

“ You are not fit for any extra work at present ” (and 
indeed he had been coughing very much all through the 
conversation). “ Give me time to consider of it. Tell me 
what you wish to teach. You will be able to take care of 
your health, and grow stronger while I consider. It shall 
not be the worse for you, if you leave it in my hands for a 
time.” 

My lady spoke very kindly ; but he was in too excited a 
state to recognise the kindness, while the idea of delay was 
evidently a sorry irritation. I heard him say : “ And I have 
so little time in which to do my work. Lord ! lay not this 
sin to my charge ! ” 

But my lady was speaking to the old butler, for whom, 
at her sign, I had rung the bell some little time before. Now 
she turned round. 

“ Mr. Gray, I find I have some bottles of Malmsey, of 
the vintage of seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, yet left. 
Malmsey, as perhaps you know, used to be considered a 
specific for coughs arising from weakness. You must permit 
me to send you half-a-dozen bottles, and, depend upon it, 
you will take a more cheerful view of life and its duties 
before you have finished them, especially if you will be so 
kind as to see Dr. Trevor, who is coming to see me in the 
course of the week. By the time you are strong enough 
to work, I will try and find some means of preventing the 
children from using such bad language, and otherwise 
annoying you.” 

“ My lady, it is the sin, and not the annoyance. I wish 
I could make you understand!” He spoke with some im- 
patience. Poor fellow ! he was too weak, exhausted, and 
nervous. “ I am perfectly well ; I can set to work to- 
morrow ; I will do anything not to be oppressed with the 
thought of how little I am doing. I do not want your wine. 
Liberty to act in the manner I think right, will do me far 
more good. But it is of no use. It is pre-ordained that I 

I 5 I 


My Lady Ludlow 

am to be nothing but a cumberer of the ground. I beg your 
ladyship’s pardon for this call.” 

He stood up, and then turned dizzy. My lady looked on, 
deeply hurt, and not a little offended. He held out his hand 
to her, and I could see that she had a little hesitation before 
she took it. He then saw me, I almost think, for the first 
time ; and put out his hand once more, drew it back, as if 
undecided, put it out again, and finally took hold of mine for 
an instant in his damp, listless hand, and was gone. 

Lady Ludlow was dissatisfied with both him and herself, 
I was sure. Indeed, I was dissatisfied with the result of the 
interview myself. But my lady was not one to speak out 
her feelings on the subject ; nor was I one to forget myself, 
and begin on a topic which she did not begin. She came to 
me, and was very tender with me ; so tender, that that, and 
the thoughts of Mr. Gray’s sick, hopeless, disappointed look, 
nearly made me cry. 

“ You are tired, little one,” said my lady. “ Go and he 
down in my room, and hear what Medlicott and I can decide 
upon in the way of strengthening dainties for that poor 
young man, who is killing himself with his over- sensitive 
conscientiousness.” 

“ Oh, my lady ! ” said I, and then I stopped. 

“ Well. What ? ” asked she. 

“ If you would but let him have Farmer Hale’s barn at 
once, it would do him more good than all.” 

“ Pooh, pooh, child ! ” though I don’t think she was dis- 
pleased, “he is not fit for more work just now. I shall go 
and write for Dr. Trevor.” 

And, for the next half-hour, we did nothing but arrange 
physical comforts and cures for poor Mr. Gray. At the end 
of the time, Mrs. Medlicott said — 

“ Has your ladyship heard that Harry Gregson has fallen 
from a tree, and broken his thigh-bone, and is like to be a 
cripple for life ? ” 

“ Harry Gregson ! That black-eyed lad who read my 
Letter ? It all comes from over-education ! * 

I 5 2 


My Lady Ludlow 


CHAPTER XI 

But I don’t see how my lady could think it was over- 
education that made Harry Gregson break his thigh, for the 
manner in which he met with the accident was this — 

Mr. Horner, who had fallen sadly out of health since his 
wife’s death, had attached himself greatly to Harry Gregson. 
Now, Mr. Horner had a cold manner to every one, and never 
spoke more than was necessary, at the best of times. And, 
latterly, it had not been the best of times with him. I dare 
say, he had had some causes for anxiety (of which I knew 
nothing) about my lady’s affairs ; and he was evidently 
annoyed by my lady’s whim (as he once inadvertently called 
it) of placing Miss Galindo under him in the position of a 
clerk. Yet he had always been friends, in his quiet way, 
with Miss Galindo, and she devoted herself to her new 
occupation with diligence and punctuality, although more 
than once she had moaned to me over the orders for needle- 
work which had been sent to her, and which, owing to her 
occupation in the service of Lady Ludlow, she had been 
unable to fulfil. 

The only living creature to whom the staid Mr. Horner 
could be said to be attached, was Harry Gregson. To my 
lady he was a faithful and devoted servant, looking keenly 
after her interests, and anxious to forward them at any cost 
of trouble to himself. But the more shrewd Mr. Horner 
was, the more probability was there of his being annoyed at 
certain peculiarities of opinion which my lady held with a 
quiet, gentle pertinacity ; against which no arguments, based 
on mere worldly and business calculations, made any way. 
This frequent opposition to views which Mr. Homer enter- 
tained, although it did not interfere with the sincere respect 
which the lady and the steward felt for each other, yet 
prevented any warmer feeling of affection from coming in. 
It seems strange to say it, but I must repeat it — the only 

153 


My Lady Ludlow 

person for whom, since his wife’s death, Mr. Horner seemed 
to feel any love, was the little imp Harry Gregson, with his 
bright, watchful eyes, his tangled hair hanging right down 
to his eyebrows, for all the world like a Skye terrier. This 
lad, half gipsy and whole poacher, as many people esteemed 
him, hung about the silent, respectable, staid Mr. Horner, 
and followed his steps with something of the affectionate 
fidelity of the dog which he resembled. I suspect, this 
demonstration of attachment to his person on Harry 
Gregson’s part was what won Mr. Horner’s regard. In the 
first instance, the steward had only chosen the lad out as 
the cleverest instrument he could find for his purpose ; and 
I don’t mean to say that, if Harry had not been almost as 
shrewd as Mr. Horner himself was, both by original disposi- 
tion and subsequent experience, the steward would have 
taken to him as he did, let the lad have shown ever so much 
affection for him. 

But even to Harry Mr. Horner was silent. Still, it was 
pleasant to find himself in many ways so readily understood ; 
to perceive that the crumbs of knowledge he let fall were 
picked up by his little follower, and hoarded like gold ; that 
here was one to hate the persons and things whom Mr. 
Horner coldly disliked, and to reverence and admire all those 
for whom he had any regard. Mr. Horner had never had 
a child, and unconsciously, I suppose, something of the 
paternal feeling had begun to develop itself in him towards 
Harry Gregson. I heard one or two things from different 
people, which have always made me fancy that Mr. Horner 
secretly and almost unconsciously hoped that Harry Gregson 
might be trained so as to be first his clerk, and next his 
assistant, and finally his successor in his stewardship to the 
Hanbury estates. 

Harry’s disgrace with my lady, in consequence of his 
reading the letter, was a deeper blow to Mr. Horner than 
his quiet manner would ever have led any one to suppose, 
or than Lady Ludlow ever dreamed of inflicting, I am 
sure. 


i54 


My Lady Ludlow 

Probably Harry had a short, stem rebuke from Mr. 
Homer at the time, for his manner was always hard even to 
those he cared for the most. But Harry’s love was not to 
be daunted or quelled by a few sharp words. I dare say, 
from what I heard of them afterwards, that Harry accom- 
panied Mr. Horner in his walk over the farm the very day of 
the rebuke ; his presence apparently unnoticed by the agent, 
by whom his absence would have been painfully felt never- 
theless. That was the way of it, as I have been told. Mr. 
Horner never bade Harry go with him ; never thanked him 
for going, or being at his heels ready to run on any errands, 
straight as the crow flies to his point, and back to heel in as 
short a time as possible. Yet, if Harry were away, Mr. 
Horner never inquired the reason from any of the men who 
might be supposed to know whether he was detained by his 
father, or otherwise engaged ; he never asked Harry himself 
where he had been. But Miss Galindo said that those 
labourers who knew Mr. Horner well told her that he was 
always more quick-eyed to shortcomings, more savage-like 
in fault-finding, on those days when the lad was absent. 

Miss Galindo, indeed, was my great authority for most of 
the village news which I heard. She it was who gave me 
the particulars of poor Harry’s accident. 

“ You see, my dear,” she said, “ the little poacher has 
taken some unaccountable fancy to my master.” (This was 
the name by which Miss Galindo always spoke of Mr. 
Horner to me, ever since she had been, as she called it, 
appointed his clerk.) 

“ Now, if I had twenty hearts to lose, I never could spare 
a bit of one of them for that good, grey, square, severe man. 
But different people have different tastes, and here is that 
little imp of a gipsy-tinker ready to turn slave for my 
master; and, odd enough, my master — who, I should have 
said beforehand, would have made short work of imp, and 
imp’s family, and have sent Hall, the Bang-beggar, after 
them in no time — my master, as they tell me, is in his way 
quite fond of the lad, and, if he could, without vexing my 

I 55 


My Lady Ludlow 

lady too much, he would have made him what the 
folks here call a Latiner. However, last night, it seems 
that there was a letter of some importance forgotten (I 
can’t tell you what it was about, my dear, though I 
know perfectly well, but ‘ service oblige ’ as well as * noblesse ,’ 
and you must take my word for it that it was im- 
portant, and one that I am surprised my master could 
forget), till too late for the post. (The poor, good, orderly 
man is not what he was before his wife’s death.) Well, it 
seems that he was sore annoyed by his forgetfulness, and 
well he might be. And it was all the more vexatious, as he 
had no one to blame but himself. As for that matter, I 
always scold somebody else when I’m in fault ; but I suppose 
my master would never think of doing that, else it’s a mighty 
relief. However, he could eat. no tea, and was altogether 
put out and gloomy. And the little faithful imp-lad, per- 
ceiving all this, I suppose, got up like a page in an old ballad, 
and said he would run for his life across country to Comber- 
ford, and see if he could not get there before the bags were 
made up. So my master gave him the letter, and nothing 
more was heard of the poor fellow till this morning, for the 
father thought his son was sleeping in Mr. Horner’s barn, as 
he does occasionally, it seems, and my master, as was very 
natural, that he had gone to his father’s.” 

“ And he had fallen down the old stone quarry, had he 
not ? ” 

“Yes, sure enough. Mr. Gray had been up here fretting 
my lady with some of his new-fangled schemes ; and, because 
the young man could not have it all his own way, from what 
I understand, he was put out, and thought he would go home 
by the back lane, instead of through the village, where the 
folks would notice if the parson looked glum. But, however, 
it was a mercy, and I don’t mind saying so, ay, and meaning 
it too, though it may be like Methodism ; for, as Mr. Gray 
walked by the quarry, he heard a groan ; and at first he 
thought it was a lamb fallen down ; and he stood still, and he 
heard it again ; and then, I suppose, he looked down and saw 

156 


My Lady Ludlow 

Harry. So he let himself down by the boughs of the trees 
to the ledge where Harry lay half-dead, and with his poor 
thigh broken. There he had lain ever since the night before : 
he had been returning to tell the master that he had safely 
posted the letter, and the first words he said, when they 
recovered him from the exhausted state he was in, were ” 
(Miss Galindo tried hard not to whimper, as she said it), 
“ ‘ It was in time, sir. I see’d it put in the bag with my 
own eyes.’ ” 

“ But where is he ? ” asked I. “ How did Mr. Gray get 
him out ? ” 

“ Ay ! there it is, you see. Why, the old gentleman (I 
daren’t say Devil in Lady Ludlow’s house) is not so black as 
he is painted ; and Mr. Gray must have a deal of good in 
him, as I say at times ; and then at others, when he has 
gone against me, I can’t bear him, and think hanging too 
good for him. But he lifted the poor lad, as if he had been 
a baby, I suppose, and carried him up the great ledges that 
were formerly used for steps ; and laid him soft and easy on 
the wayside grass, and ran home and got help and a door, 
and had him carried to his house, and laid on his bed ; and 
then somehow, for the first time either he or any one else 
perceived it, he himself was all over blood — his own blood — 
he had broken a blood-vessel ; and there he lies in the little 
dressing-room, as white and as still as if he were dead ; and 
the little imp in Mr. Gray’s own bed, sound asleep, now his 
leg is set, just as if linen sheets and a feather bed were his 
native element, as one may say. Beally, now he is doing so 
well, I’ve no patience with him, lying there where Mr. 
Gray ought to be. It is just what my lady always pro- 
phesied would come to pass, if there was any confusion of 
ranks.” 

“ Poor Mr. Gray ! ” said I, thinking of his flushed face, 
and his feverish, restless ways, when he had been calling on 
my lady not an hour before his exertions on Harry’s behalf. 
And I told Miss Galindo how ill I had thought him. 

“ Yes,” said she. “ And that was the reason my lady had 
157 


My Lady Ludlow 

sent for Doctor Trevor. Well, it has fallen out admirably, 
for he looked well after that old donkey of a Prince, and saw 
that he made no blunders.” 

Now “ that old donkey of a Prince ” meant the village 
surgeon, Mr. Prince, between whom and Miss Galindo there 
was war to the knife, as they often met in the cottages, when 
there was illness, and she had her queer, odd recipes, which 
he, with his grand pharmacopoeia, held in infinite contempt ; 
and the consequence of their squabbling had been, not long 
before this very time, that he had established a kind of rule, 
that into whatever sick-room Miss Galindo was admitted, 
there he refused to visit. But Miss Galindo’s prescriptions 
and visits cost nothing, and were often backed by kitchen- 
physic ; so, though it was true that she never came but she 
scolded about something or other, she was generally preferred 
as medical attendant to Mr. Prince. 

“Yes, the old donkey is obliged to tolerate me, and be 
civil to me ; for, you see, I got there first, and had possession, 
as it were, and yet my lord the donkey likes the credit of 
attending the parson, and being ’in consultation with so 
grand a county-town doctor as Doctor Trevor. And Doctor 
Trevor is an old friend of mine ” (she sighed a little, some 
time I may tell you why), “ and treats me with infinite 
bowing and respect ; so the donkey, not to be out of medical 
fashion, bows too, though it is sadly against the grain ; and 
he pulled a face as if he had heard a slate-pencil gritting 
against a slate, when I told Doctor Trevor I meant to sit up 
with the two lads ; for I call Mr. Gray little more than a lad, 
and a pretty conceited one, too, at times.” 

“ But why should you sit up, Miss Galindo ? It will tire 
you sadly.” 

“ Not it. You see, there is Gregson’s mother to keep 
quiet : for she sits by her lad, fretting and sobbing, so that 
I’m afraid of her disturbing Mr. Gray ; and there’s Mr. Gray 
to keep quiet, for Doctor Trevor says his life depends on it ; 
and there is medicine to be given to the one, and bandages 
to be attended to for the other ; and the wild horde of gipsy 

153 


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My Lady Ludlow 

brothers and sisters to be turned out, and the father to be held 
in from showing too much gratitude to Mr. Gray, who can’t 
bear it — and who is to do it all but me ? The only servant 
is old lame Betty, who once lived with me, and would leave 
me because she said I was always bothering — (there was a 
good deal of truth in what she said, I grant, but she need not 
have said it ; a good deal of truth is best let alone at the 
bottom of the well), and what can she do — deaf as ever she 
can be, too ? ” 

So Miss Galindo went her ways ; but not the less was 
she at her post in the morning ; a little crosser and more 
silent than usual ; but the first was not to be wondered at, 
and the last was rather a blessing. 

Lady Ludlow had been extremely anxious both about 
Mr. Gray and Harry Gregson. Kind and thoughtful in any 
case of illness and accident she always was ; but somehow, 
in this, the feeling that she was not quite — what shall I call 
it ? — “ friends ” seems hardly the right word to use, as to 
the possible feeling between the Countess Ludlow and the 
little vagabond messenger, who had only once been in her 
presence — that she had hardly parted from either as she 
could have wished to do, had death been near, made her 
more than usually anxious. Doctor Trevor was not to spare 
obtaining the best medical advice the county could afford ; 
whatever he ordered in the way of ’diet, was to be prepared 
under Mrs. Medlicott’s own eye, and sent down from the 
Hall to the Parsonage. As Mr. Horner had given somewhat 
similar directions, in the case of Harry Gregson at least, 
there was rather a multiplicity of counsellors and dainties 
than any lack of them. And, the second night, Mr. Homer 
insisted on taking the superintendence of the nursing 
himself, and sat and snored by Harry’s bedside, while the 
poor, exhausted mother lay by her child— thinking that she 
watched him, but in reality fast asleep, as Miss Galindo 
told us ; for, distrusting any one’s powers of watching and 
nursing but her own, she had stolen across the quiet village 
street in cloak and dressing-gown, and found Mr. Gray in 

159 


My Lady Ludlow 

vain trying to reach the cup of barley-water which Mr. 
Horner had placed just beyond his reach. 

In consequence of Mr. Gray’s illness, we had to have a 
strange curate to do duty : a man who dropped his K s, and 
hurried through the service, and yet had time enough to 
stand in my lady’s way, bowing to her as she came out of 
church, and so subservient in manner that I believe that, 
sooner than remain unnoticed by a countess, he would have 
preferred being scolded, or even cuffed. Now I found out 
that, great as was my lady’s liking and approval of respect, 
nay, even reverence, being paid to her as a person of quality 
— a sort of tribute to her Order, which she had no individual 
right to remit, or, indeed, not to exact — yet she, being 
personally simple, sincere, and holding herself in low esteem, 
could not endure anything like the servility of Mr. Crosse, 
the temporary curate. She grew absolutely to loathe his 
perpetual smiling and bowing ; his instant agreement with 
the slightest opinion she uttered ; his veering round as she 
blew the wind. I have often said that my lady did not talk 
much, as she might have done had she lived among her 
equals. But we all loved her so much that we had learnt 
to interpret all her little ways pretty truly ; and I knew 
what particular turns of her head, and contractions of her 
delicate fingers meant, as well as if she had expressed 
herself in words. I began to suspect that my lady would be 
very thankful to have Mr. Gray about again, and doing his 
duty even with a conscientiousness that might amount to 
worrying himself and fidgeting others ; and, although Mr. 
Gray might hold her opinions in as little esteem as those of 
any simple gentlewoman, she was too sensible not to feel 
how much flavour there was in his conversation, compared 
to that of Mr. Crosse, who was only her tasteless echo. 

As for Miss Galindo, she was utterly and entirely a 
partisan of Mr. Gray’s, almost ever since she had begun to 
nurse him during his illness. 

“ You know, I never set up for reasonableness, my lady. 
So I don’t pretend to say, as I might do if I were a sensible 

160 


My Lady Ludlow 

woman and. all that — that X am convinced by Mr. Gray’s 
arguments of this thing or t’other. For one thing, you see, 
poor fellow ! he has never been able to argue, or hardly 
indeed to speak, for Doctor Trevor has been very peremptory. 
So there’s been no scope for arguing! But what I mean 
is this : — When I see a sick man thinking always of others, 
and never of himself; patient, humble— a trifle too much 
at times, for I’ve caught him praying to be forgiven for 
having neglected his work as a parish priest ” (Miss Galindo 
was making horrible faces, to keep back tears, squeezing up 
her eyes in a way which would have amused me at any 
other time but when she was speaking of Mr. Gray) ; “ when 
I see a downright good, religious man, I’m apt to think he’s 
got hold of the right clue, and that I can do no better than 
hold on by the tails of his coat and shut my eyes, if we’ve 
got to go over doubtful places on our road to heaven. So, 
my lady, you must excuse me, if, when he gets about again, 
he is all agog about a Sunday-school ; for, if he is, I shall be 
agog too, and perhaps twice as bad as him ; for, you see, I’ve 
a strong constitution compared to his, and . strong ways of 
speaking and acting. And I tell your ladyship this now, 
because I think from your rank — and still more, if I may 
say so, for all your kindness to me long ago, down to this 
very day — you’ve a right to be first told of anything about 
me. Change of opinion I can’t exactly call it, for I don’t 
see the good of schools and teaching ABC, any more than 
I did before, only Mr. Gray does, so I’m to shut my eyes, 
and leap over the ditch to the side of education. I’ve told 
Sally already, that if she does not mind her work, but stands 
gossiping with Nelly Mather, I’ll teach her her lessons ; and 
I’ve never caught her with old Nelly since.” 

I think Miss Galindo’s desertion to Mr. Gray’s opinions in 
this matter hurt my lady just a little bit ; but she only said — 

“ Of course, if the parishioners wish for it, Mr. Gray 
must have his Sunday-school. I shall, in that case, with- 
draw my opposition. I am sorry I cannot alter my opinions 
as easily as you.” 

161 


M 


My Lady Ludlow 

My lady made herself smile as she said this. Miss 
Galindo saw it was an effort to do so. She thought a minute 
before she spoke again. 

“ Your ladyship has not seen Mr. Gray as intimately as 
I have done. That’s one thing. But, as for the parishioners, 
they will follow your ladyship’s lead in everything ; so there 
is no chance of their wishing for a Sunday-school.” 

“ I have never done anything to make them follow my 
lead, as you call it, Miss Galindo,” said my lady gravely. 

“ Yes, you have,” replied Miss Galindo bluntly. And 
then, correcting herself, she said, “ Begging your ladyship’s 
pardon, you have. Your ancestors have lived here time out 
of mind, and have owned the land on which their forefathers 
have lived ever since there were forefathers. You yourself 
were born amongst them, and have been like a little queen 
to them ever since, I might say, and they’ve never known 
your ladyship do anything but what was kind and gentle ; 
but I’ll leave fine speeches about your ladyship to Mr. 
Crosse. Only you, my lady, lead the thoughts of the parish, 
and save some of them a world of trouble ; for they could 
never tell what was right if they had to think for themselves. 
It’s all quite right that they should be guided by you, my 
lady — if only you would agree with Mr. Gray.” 

“ Well,” said my lady, “ I told him only the last day 
that he was here, that I would think about it. I do believe 
I could make up my mind on certain subjects better if I 
were left alone, than while being constantly talked to about 
them.” 

My lady said this in her usual soft tones, but the words 
had a tinge of impatience about them ; indeed, she was 
more ruffled than I had often seen her ; but, checking herself 
in an instant, she said — 

“ You don’t know how Mr. Horner drags in this subject 
of education a-propos of everything. Not that he says much 
about it at any time ; it is not his way. But he cannot let 
the thing alone.” 

“ I know why, my lady,” said Miss Galindo. “ That 
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My Lady Ludlow 

poor lad, Harry Gregson, will never be able to earn his 
livelihood in any active way, but will be lame for life. Now, 
Mr. Horner thinks more of Harry than of any one else in 
the world — except, perhaps, your ladyship.” Was it not a 
pretty companionship for my lady? “ And he has schemes 
of his own for teaching Harry ; and, if Mr. Gray could but 
have his school, Mr. Horner and he think Harry might be 
schoolmaster, as your ladyship would not like to have him 
coming to you as steward’s clerk. I wish your ladyship 
would fall into this plan ; Mr. Gray has it so at heart.” 

Miss Galindo looked wistfully at my lady, as she said 
this. But my lady only said drily, and rising at the same 
time, as if to end the conversation — 

“ So ! Mr. Horner and Mr. Gray seem to have gone a 
long way in advance of my consent to their plans.” 

“ There ! ” exclaimed Miss Galindo, as my lady left the 
room, with an apology for going away ; “ I have gone and 
done mischief with my long, stupid tongue. To be sure, 
people plan a long way ahead of to-day; more especially 
when one is a sick man, lying all through the weary day on 
a sofa.” 

“ My lady will soon get over her annoyance,” said I, 
as it were apologetically. I only stopped Miss Galindo’s 
self-reproaches to draw down her wrath upon myself. 

“ And has not she a right to be annoyed with me if she 
likes, and to keep annoyed as long as she likes ? Am I 
complaining of her, that you need tell me that ? Let me 
tell you, I have known my lady these thirty years ; and if 
she were to take me by the shoulders, and turn me out of 
the house, I should only love her the more. So don’t you 
think to come between us with any little mincing, peace- 
making speeches. I have been a mischief-making parrot, 
and I like her the better for being vexed with me. So 
good-bye to you, Miss ; and wait till you know Lady Ludlow 
as well as I do, before you next think of telling me she 
will soon get over her annoyance ! ” And off Miss Galindo 
went. 


163 


My Lady Ludlow 

I could not exactly tell what I had done wrong ; but I 
took care never again to come in between my lady and her 
by any remark about the one to the other ; for I saw that 
some most powerful bond of grateful affection made Miss 
Galindo almost worship my lady. 

Meanwhile Harry Gregson was limping a little about in 
the village, still finding his home in Mr. Gray’s house ; for 
there he could most conveniently be kept under the doctor’s 
eye, and receive the requisite care, and enjoy the requisite 
nourishment. As soon as he was a little better, he was to 
go to Mr. Horner’s house ; but, as the steward lived some 
distance out of the way, and was much from home, he had 
agreed to leave Harry at the house to which he had first 
been taken, until he was quite strong again ; and the more 
willingly, I suspect, from what I heard afterwards, because 
Mr. Gray gave up all the little strength of speaking which 
he had, to teaching Harry in the very manner which Mr. 
Horner most desired. 

As for Gregson the father, he — wild man of the woods, 
poacher, tinker, jack-of -all- trades — was getting tamed by this 
kindness to his child. Hitherto his hand had been against 
every man, as every man’s had been against him. That 
affair before the justice, which I told you about, when Mr. 
Gray and even my lady had interested themselves to get 
him released from unjust imprisonment, was the first bit of 
justice he had ever met with : it attracted him to the people, 
and attached him to the spot on which he had but squatted 
for a time. I am not sure if any of the villagers were 
grateful to him for remaining in their neighbourhood, instead 
of decamping as he had often done before, for good reasons, 
doubtless, of personal safety. Harry was only one out of a 
brood of ten or twelve children, some of whom had earned 
for themselves no good character in service : one, indeed, had 
been actually transported, for a robbery committed in a 
distant part of the county ; and the tale was yet told in the 
village of how Gregson the father came back from the trial 
in a state of wild rage, striding through the place, and 

164 


My Lady Ludlow 

uttering oaths of vengeance to himself, his great black eyes 
gleaming out of his matted hair, and his arms working by 
his side, and now and then tossed up in his impotent despair. 
As I heard the account, his wife followed him, child-laden 
and weeping. After this, they had vanished from the country 
for a time, leaving their mud hovel locked up, and the door- 
key, as the neighbours said, buried in a hedge-bank. The 
Gregsons had re-appeared much about the same time that 
Mr. Gray came to Hanbury. He had either never heard of 
their evil character, or considered that it gave them all the 
more claims upon his Christian care ; and the end of it was, 
that this rough, untamed, strong giant of a heathen was loyal 
slave to the weak, hectic, nervous, self-distrustful parson. 
Gregson had also a kind of grumbling respect for Mr. Horner : 
he did not quite like the steward’s monopoly of his Harry ; 
the mother submitted to that with a better grace, swallowing 
down her maternal jealousy in the prospect of her child’s 
advancement to a better and more respectable position than 
that in which his parents had struggled through life. But Mr. 
Horner, the steward, and Gregson, the poacher and squatter, 
had come into disagreeable contact too often in former days 
for them to be perfectly cordial at any future time. Even 
now, when there was no immediate cause for anything but 
gratitude for his child’s sake on Gregson’s part, he would 
skulk out of Mr. Horner’s way, if he saw him coming ; and 
it took all Mr. Homer’s natural reserve and acquired self- 
restraint to keep him from occasionally holding up his 
father’s life as a warning to Harry. Now, Gregson had 
nothing of this desire for avoidance with regard to Mr. Gray. 
The poacher had a feeling of physical protection towards the 
parson ; while the latter had shown the moral courage, with- 
out which Gregson would never have respected him, in 
coming right down upon him more than once in the exercise 
of unlawful pursuits, and simply and boldly telling him he 
was doing wrong, with such a quiet reliance upon Gregson’s 
better feeling, at the same time, that the strong poacher could 
not have lifted a finger against Mr. Gray, though it had been 

i6 5 


My Lady Ludlow 

to save himself from being apprehended and taken to the lock- 
ups the very next hour. He had rather listened to the 
parson’s bold words with an approving smile, much as 
Mr. Gulliver might have hearkened to a lecture from a 
Lilliputian. But when brave words passed into kind deeds, 
Gregson’s heart mutely acknowledged its master and keeper. 
And the beauty of it all was, that Mr. Gray knew nothing of 
the good work he had done, or recognised himself as the 
instrument which God had employed. He thanked God, it 
is true, fervently and often, that the work was done, and 
loved the wild man for his rough gratitude; but it never 
occurred to the poor young clergyman, lying on his sick- 
bed, and praying, as Miss Galindo had told us he did, to 
be forgiven for his unprofitable life, to think of Gregson’s 
reclaimed soul as anything with which he had had to do. It 
was now more than three months since Mr. Gray had been 
at Hanbury Court. During all that time he had been con- 
fined to his house, if not to his sick-bed, and he and my lady 
had never met since their last discussion and difference about 
Farmer Hale’s barn. 

This was not my dear lady’s fault ; no one could have 
been more attentive in every way to the slightest possible 
want of either of the invalids, especially of Mr. Gray. And 
she would have gone to see him at his own house, as she 
sent him word, but that her foot had slipped upon the 
polished oak staircase, and her ankle had been sprained. 

So we had never seen Mr. Gray since his illness, when 
one November day he was announced as wishing to speak 
to my lady. She was sitting in her room — the room in 
which I lay now pretty constantly — and I remember she 
looked startled, when word was brought to her of Mr. Gray’s 
being at the Hall. 

She could not go to him, she was too lame for that, so 
she bade him be shown into where she sat. 

“ Such a day for him to go out ! ” she exclaimed, looking 
at the fog which had crept up to the windows, and was 
sapping the little remaining life in the brilliant Virginian 

166 


My Lady Ludlow 

creeper leaves that draperied the house on the terrace 
side. 

He came in white, trembling, his large eyes wild and 
dilated. He hastened up to Lady Ludlow’s chair, and, to 
my surprise, took one of her hands and kissed it, without 
speaking, yet shaking all over. 

“ Mr. Gray ! ” said she quickly, with sharp, tremulous 
apprehension of some unknown evil. “ What is it ? There 
is something unusual about you.” 

“ Something unusual has occurred,” replied he, forcing 
his words to be calm, as with a great effort. “ A gentleman 
came to my house, not half-an-hour ago — a Mr. Howard. 
He came straight from Vienna.” 

“ My son ! ” said my dear lady, stretching out her arms 
in dumb questioning attitude. 

“ The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be 
the name of the Lord.” 

But my poor lady could not echo the words. He was 
the last remaining child. And once she had been the joyful 
mother of nine. 


CHAPTER XII 

I am ashamed to say what feeling became strongest in my 
mind about this time; next to the sympathy we all of us 
felt for my dear lady in her deep sorrow, I mean ; for that 
was greater and stronger than anything else, however 
contradictory you may think it, when you hear all. 

It might arise from my being so far from well at the time, 
which produced a diseased mind in a diseased body ; but I 
was absolutely jealous for my father’s memory, when I saw 
how many signs of grief there were for my lord’s death, he 
having done next to nothing for the village and parish, 
which now changed, as it were, its daily course of life, 
because his lordship died in a far-off city. My father had 

167 


My Lady Ludlow 

spent the best years of his manhood in labouring hard, body 
and soul, for the people amongst whom he lived. His 
family, of course, claimed the first place in his heart ; he 
would have been good for little, even in the way of benevo- 
lence, if they had not. But close after them he cared for 
his parishioners, and neighbours. And yet, when he died, 
though the church-bells tolled, and smote upon our hearts 
with hard, fresh pain at every beat, the sounds of every-day 
life still went on, close pressing around us — carts and 
carriages, street-cries, distant barrel-organs (the kindly 
neighbours kept them out of our street) : life, active, noisy 
life, pressed on our acute consciousness of Death, and jarred 
upon it as on a quick nerve. 

And when we went to church — my father’s own church 
— though the pulpit cushions were black, and many of the 
congregation had put on some humble sign of mourning, 
yet it did not alter the whole material aspect of the place. 
And yet what was Lord Ludlow’s relation to Hanbury, 
compared to my father’s work and place in ? 

Oh ! it was very wicked in me ! I think if I had seen 
my lady — if I had dared to ask to go to her, I should not 
have felt so miserable, so discontented. But she sat in her 
own room, hung with black, all, even over the shutters. 
She saw no light but that which was artificial — candles, 
lamps, and the like — for more than a month. Only Adams 
went near her. Mr. Gray was not admitted, though he 
called daily. Even Mrs. Medlicott did not see her for near 
a fortnight. The sight of my lady’s griefs, or rather the 
recollection of it, made Mrs. Medlicott talk far more than 
was her wont. She told us, with many tears, and much 
gesticulation, even speaking German at times, when her 
English would not flow, that my lady sat there, a white 
figure in the middle of a darkened room; a shaded lamp 
near her, the light of which fell on an open Bible — the great 
family Bible. It was not open at any chapter or consoling 
verse, but at the page whereon were registered the births of 
her nine children. Five had died in infancy — sacrificed to 

1 68 


My Lady Ludlow 

the cruel system which forbade the mother to suckle her 
babies. Four had lived longer ; Urian had been the first to 
die, Ughtred Mortimer, Earl Ludlow, the last. 

My lady did not cry, Mrs. Medlicott said. She was quite 
composed ; very still, very silent. She put aside everything 
that savoured of mere business : sent people to Mr. Horner 
for that. But she was proudly alive to every possible form 
which might do honour to the last of her race. 

In those days, expresses were slow things, and forms 
still slower. Before my lady’s directions could reach Vienna, 
my lord was buried. There was some talk (so Mrs. Medli- 
cott said) about taking the body up, and bringing him to 
Hanbury. But his executors — connections on the Ludlow 
side — demurred to this. If he were removed to England, 
he must be carried on to Scotland, and interred with his 
Monkshaven forefathers. My lady, deeply hurt, withdrew 
from the discussion, before it degenerated to an unseemly 
contest. But all the more, for this understood mortification 
of my lady’s, did the whole village and estate of Hanbury 
assume every outward sign of mourning. The church bells 
tolled morning and evening. The church itself was draped 
in black inside. Hatchments were placed everywhere, 
where hatchments could be put. All the tenantry spoke in 
hushed voices for more than a week, scarcely daring to 
observe that all flesh, even that of an Earl Ludlow, and the 
last of the Hanburys, was but grass after all. The very 
Fighting Lion closed its front door — front shutters it had 
none — and those who needed drink stole in at the back, and 
were silent and maudlin over their cups, instead of riotous 
and noisy. Miss Galindo’s eyes were swollen up with 
crying, and she told me, with a fresh burst of tears, that 
even hump-backed Sally had been found sobbing over her 
Bible, and using a pocket-handkerchief for the first time in 
her life ; her aprons having hitherto stood her in the 
necessary stead, but not being sufficiently in accordance 
with etiquette to be used when mourning over an earl’s 
premature decease. 


169 


My Lady Ludlow 

If it was this way out of the Hall, “ you might work it 
by the rule of three,” as Miss Galindo used to say, and 
judge what it was in the Hall. We none of us spoke but in 
a whisper : we tried not to eat ; and indeed the shock had 
been so really great, and we did really care so much for 
my lady, that for some days we had but little appetite. 
But after that, I fear our sympathy grew weaker, while our 
flesh grew stronger. But we still spoke low, and our hearts 
ached whenever we thought of my lady sitting there alone 
in the darkened room, with the light ever falling on that one 
solemn page. 

We wished, oh, how I wished that she would see Mr. 
Gray! But Adams said, she thought my lady ought to 
have a bishop come to see her. Still no one had authority 
enough to send for one. 

Mr. Homer all this time was suffering as much as any 
one. He was too faithful a servant of the great Hanbury 
family, though now the family had dwindled down to a 
fragile old lady, not to mourn acutely over its probable 
extinction. He had, besides, a deeper sympathy and 
reverence with, and for, my lady, in all things than pro- 
bably he ever cared to show, for his manners were always 
measured and cold. He suffered from sorrow. He also 
suffered from wrong. My lord’s executors kept writing to 
him continually. My lady refused to listen to mere business, 
saying she intrusted all to him. But the “ all ” was more 
complicated than I ever thoroughly understood. As far as 
I comprehended the case, it was something of this kind : — 
There had been a mortgage raised on my lady’s property of 
Hanbury, to enable my lord, her husband, to spend money 
in cultivating his Scotch estates, after some new fashion 
that required capital. As long as my lord, her son, lived, 
who was to succeed to both the estates after her death, this 
did not signify ; so she had said and felt ; and she had 
refused to take any steps to secure the repayment of capital, 
or even the payment of the interest of the mortgage, from the 
possible representatives and possessors of the Scotch estates, 

170 


My Lady Ludlow 

to the possible owner of the Hanbury property ; saying it 
ill became her to calculate on the contingency of her son’s 
death. 

But he had died childless, unmarried. The heir of the 
Monkshaven property was an Edinburgh advocate, a far- 
away kinsman of my lord’s : the Hanbury property, at my 
lady’s death, would go to the descendants of a third son of 
the Squire Hanbury in the days of Queen Anne. 

This complication of affairs was most grievous to Mr. 
Horner. He had always been opposed to the mortgage; 
had hated the payment of the interest, as obliging my lady 
to practise certain economies which, though she took care to 
make them as personal as possible, he disliked as derogatory 
to the family. Poor Mr. Horner ! He was so cold and hard 
in his manner, so curt and decisive in his speech, that I don’t 
think we any of us did him justice. Miss Galindo was 
almost the first, at this time, to speak a kind word of him, or 
to take thought of him at all, any farther than to get out of 
his way when we saw him approaching. 

“ I don’t think Mr. Horner is well,” she said one day, 
about three weeks after we had heard of my lord’s death. 
“ He sits resting hik head on his hand, and hardly hears me 
when I speak to him.” 

But I thought no more of it, as Miss Galindo did not 
name it again. My lady came amongst us once more. 
From elderly she had become old : a little, frail, old lady, in 
heavy black drapery, never speaking about nor alluding to 
her great sorrow; quieter, gentler, paler than ever before; 
and her eyes dim with much weeping, never witnessed by 
mortal. 

She had seen Mr. Gray at the expiration of the month of 
deep retirement. But I do not think that, even to him, she 
had said one word of her own particular individual sorrow. 
All mention of it seemed buried deep for evermore. One 
day, Mr. Homer sent word that he was too much indisposed 
to attend to his usual business at the Hall; but he wrote 
down some directions and requests to Miss Galindo, saying 

171 


My Lady Ludlow 

that he would be at his office early the next morning. The 
next morning he was dead. 

Miss Galindo told my lady. Miss Galindo herself cried 
plentifully, but my lady, although very much distressed, 
could not cry. It seemed a physical impossibility, as if she 
had shed all the tears in her power. Moreover, I almost 
think her wonder was far greater that she herself lived 
than that Mr. Horner died. It was almost natural that so 
faithful a servant should break his heart, when the family 
he belonged to lost their stay, their heir, and their last hope. 

Yes ! Mr. Horner was a faithful servant. I do not think 
there are many so faithful now ; but perhaps that is an old 
woman’s fancy of mine. When his will came to be examined, 
it was discovered that, soon after Harry Gregson’s accident, 
Mr. Horner had left the few thousands (three, I think) of 
which he was possessed, in trust for Harry’s benefit, desiring 
his executors to see that the lad was well educated in certain 
things, for which Mr. Horner had thought that he had shown 
especial aptitude ; and there was a kind of implied apology 
to my lady in one sentence, where he stated that Harry’s 
lameness would prevent his being ever able to gain his living 
by the exercise of any mere bodily faculties, “ as had been 
wished by a lady whose wishes ” he, the testator, “ was 
bound to regard.” 

But there was a codicil in the will, dated since Lord 
Ludlow’s death — feebly written by Mr. Horner himself, as 
if in preparation only for some more formal manner of 
bequest : or, perhaps, only as a mere temporary arrangement 
till he could see a lawyer, and have a fresh will made. In 
this he revoked his previous bequest to Harry Gregson. He 
only left two hundred pounds to Mr. Gray to be used, as 
that gentleman thought best, for Henry Gregson’s benefit. 
With this one exception, he bequeathed all the rest of his 
savings to my lady, with a hope that they might form a 
nest-egg, as it were, towards the paying off of the mortgage 
which had been such a grief to him during his life. I may 
not repeat all this in lawyer’s phrase ; I heard it through 

172 


My Lady Ludlow 

Miss Galindo, and she might make mistakes. Though, 
indeed, she was very clear-headed, and soon earned the 
respect of Mr. Smithson, my lady’s lawyer from Warwick. 
Mr. Smithson knew Miss Galindo a little before, both 
personally and by reputation ; but I don’t think he was 
prepared to find her installed as steward’s clerk, and, at 
first, he was inclined to treat her, in this capacity, with 
polite contempt. But Miss Galindo was both a lady and a 
spirited, sensible woman, and she could put aside her self- 
indulgence in eccentricity of speech and manner whenever 
she chose. Nay, more ; she was usually so talkative that, 
if she had not been amusing and warm-hearted, one might 
have thought her wearisome occasionally. But to meet Mr. 
Smithson she came out daily in her Sunday gown ; she said 
no more than was required in answer to his questions ; her 
books and papers were in thorough order, and methodically 
kept ; her statements of matters of fact accurate, and to be 
relied on. She was amusingly conscious of her victory over 
his contempt of a woman- clerk and his preconceived opinion 
of her unpractical eccentricity. 

“ Let me alone,” said she, one day when she came in to 
sit awhile with me. “ That man is a good man — a sensible 
man — and I have no doubt he is a good lawyer; but he 
can’t fathom women yet. I make no doubt he’ll go back to 
Warwick, and never give credit again to those people who 
made him think me half-cracked to begin with. Oh, my 
dear, he did ! He showed it twenty times worse than my 
poor dear master ever did. It was a form to be gone 
through to please my lady, and, for her sake, he would hear 
my statements and see my books. It was keeping a woman 
out of harm’s way, at any rate, to let her fancy herself useful. 
I read the man. And, I am thankful to say, he cannot read 
me. At least, only one side of me. When I see an end to 
be gained, I can behave myself accordingly. Here was a 
man who thought that a woman in a black silk gown was a 
respectable, orderly kind of person ; and I was a woman in 
a black silk gown. He believed that a woman could not 

173 


My Lady Ludlow 

write straight lines, and required a man to tell her that two 
and two made four. I was not above ruling my books, and 
had Cocker a little more at my fingers’ ends than he had. 
But my greatest triumph has been holding my tongue. 
He would have thought nothing of my books, or my sums, 
or my black silk gown, if I had spoken unasked. So I have 
buried more sense in my bosom these ten days than ever I 
have uttered in the whole course of my life before. I have 
been so curt, so abrupt, so abominably dull, that I’ll answer 
for it he thinks me worthy to be a man. But I must go 
back to him, my dear ; so good-bye to conversation and you.” 

But though Mr. Smithson might be satisfied with Miss 
Galindo, I am afraid she was the only part of the affair with 
which he was content. Everything else went wrong. I 
could not say who told me so — but the conviction of this 
seemed to pervade the house. I never knew how much we 
had all looked up to the silent, gruff Mr. Horner for decisions, 
until he was gone. My lady herself was a pretty good woman 
of business, as women of business go. Her father, seeing 
that she would be the heiress of the Hanbury property, had 
given her a training which was thought unusual in those 
days ; and she liked to feel herself queen regnant, and to have 
to decide in all cases between herself and her tenantry. But, 
perhaps, Mr. Horner would have done it more wisely ; not 
but what she always attended to him at last. She would 
begin by saying, pretty clearly and promptly, what she would 
have done, and what she would not have done. If Mr. 
Horner approved of it, he bowed, and set about obeying her 
directly ; if he disapproved of it, he bowed, and lingered so 
long before he obeyed her, that she forced his opinion out of 
him with her “ Well, Mr. Horner ! and what have you to 
say against it ? ” For she always understood his silence 
as well as if he had spoken. But the estate was pressed for 
ready money, and Mr. Horner had grown gloomy and languid 
since the death of his wife, and even his own personal affairs 
were not in the order in which they had been a year or two 
before, for his old clerk had gradually become superannuated, 

174 


My Lady Ludlow 

or, at any rate, unable by the superfluity of his own energy 
and wit to supply the spirit that was wanting in Mr. Horner. 

Day after day Mr. Smithson seemed to grow more fidgety, 
more annoyed at the state of affairs. Like every one else 
employed by Lady Ludlow, as far as I could learn, he had 
an hereditary tie to the Hanbury family. As long as the 
Smithsons had been lawyers, they had been lawyers to the 
Hanburys ; always coming in on all great family occasions, 
and better able to understand the characters, and connect the 
links of what had once been a large and scattered family, 
than any individual thereof had ever been. 

As long as a man was at the head of the Hanburys, the 
lawyers had simply acted as servants, and had only given 
their advice when it was required. But they had assumed a 
different position on the memorable occasion of the mortgage : 
they had remonstrated against it. My lady had resented 
this remonstrance, and a slight, unspoken coolness had 
existed between her and the father of this Mr. Smithson 
ever since. 

I was very sorry for my lady. Mr. Smithson was in- 
clined to blame Mr. Horner for the disorderly state in which 
he found some of the outlying farms, and for the deficiencies 
in the annual payment of rents. Mr. Smithson bad too 
much good feeling to put his blame into words ; but my 
lady’s quick instinct led her to reply to a thought, the 
existence of which she perceived ; and she quietly told the 
truth, and explained how she had interfered repeatedly to 
prevent Mr. Horner from taking certain desirable steps, 
which were discordant to her hereditary sense of right and 
wrong between landlord and tenant. She also spoke of the 
want of ready money as a misfortune that could be remedied, 
by more economical personal expenditure on her own part ; 
by which individual saving it was possible that a reduction 
of fifty pounds a year might have been accomplished. But 
as soon as Mr. Smithson touched on larger economies, such 
as either affected the welfare of others, or the honour and 
standing of the great House of Hanbury, she was inflexible. 

175 


My Lady Ludlow 

Her establishment consisted of somewhere about forty ser- 
vants, of whom nearly as many as twenty were unable to 
perform their work properly, and yet would have been hurt 
if they had been dismissed ; so they had the credit of ful- 
filling duties, while my lady paid and kept their substitutes. 
Mr. Smithson made a calculation, and would have saved 
some hundreds a year by pensioning off these old servants. 
But my lady would not hear of it. Then, again, I know 
privately that he urged her to allow some of us to return to 
our homes. Bitterly we should have regretted the separa- 
tion from Lady Ludlow ; but we would have gone back 
gladly, had we known at the time that her circumstances 
required it : but she would not listen to the proposal for a 
moment. 

“ If I cannot act justly towards every one, I will give up 
a plan which has been a source of much satisfaction ; at 
least, 1 will not carry it out to such an extent in future. 
But to these young ladies, who do me the favour to live 
with me at present, I stand pledged. I cannot go back 
from my word, Mr. Smithson. We had better talk no more 
of this.” 

As she spoke, she entered the room where I lay. She 
and Mr. Smithson were coming for some papers contained 
in the bureau. They did not know I was there, and Mr. 
Smithson started a little when he saw me, as he must have 
been aware that I had overheard something. But my lady 
did not change a muscle of her face. All the world might 
overhear her kind, just, pure sayings, and she had no fear 
of their misconstruction. She came up to me, and kissed 
me on the forehead, and then went to search for the required 
papers. 

“ I rode over the Conington farms yesterday, my lady. 
I must say I was quite grieved to see the condition they are 
in ; all the land that is not waste is utterly exhausted with 
working successive white crops. Not a pinch of manure 
laid on the ground for years. I must say that a greater 
contrast could never have been presented than that between 

176 


My Lady Ludlow 

Harding’s farm and the next fields — fences in perfect order, 
rotation crops, sheep eating down the turnips on the waste 
lands— everything that could be desired.” 

“ Whose farm is that ? ” asked my lady. 

“ Why, I am sorry to say, it was on none of your lady- 
ship’s that I saw such good methods adopted. I hoped it 
was : I stopped my horse to inquire. A queer-looking man, 
sitting on his horse like a tailor, watching his men with a 
couple of the sharpest eyes I ever saw, and dropping his A’s 
at every word, answered my question, and told me it was 
his. I could not go on asking him who he was ; but I fell 
into conversation with him, and I gathered that he had 
earned some money in trade in Birmingham, and had 
bought the estate (five hundred acres, I think he said), on 
which he was born, and now was setting himself to cultivate 
it in downright earnest, going to Holkham and Woburn, 
and half the country over, to get himself up on the subject.” 

“ It would be Brooke, that dissenting baker from Birming- 
ham,” said my lady in her most icy tone. “ Mr. Smithson, 
I am sorry I have been detaining you so long, but I think 
these are the letters you wished to see.” 

If her ladyship thought by this speech to quench Mr. 
Smithson she was mistaken. Mr. Smithson just looked at 
the letters, and went on with the old subject. 

“ Now, my lady, it struck me that if you had such a man 
to take poor Horner’s place, he would work the rents and 
the land round most satisfactorily. I should not despair of 
inducing this very man to undertake the work. I should 
not mind speaking to him myself on the subject, for we got 
capital friends over a snack of. luncheon that he asked me to 
share with him.” 

Lady Ludlow fixed her eyes on Mr. Smithson as he spoke, 
and never took them off his face until he had ended. She 
was silent a minute before she answered. 

“ You are very good, Mr. Smithson, but I need not trouble 
you with any such arrangements. I am going to write this 
afternoon to Captain James, a friend of one of my sons, who 

177 N 


My Lady Ludlow 

has, I hear, been severely wounded at Trafalgar, to request 
him to honour me by accepting Mr. Horner’s situation.” 

“ A Captain James ! a captain in the navy ! going to 
manage your ladyship’s estate ! ” 

“ If he will be so kind. I shall esteem it a condescension 
on his part ; but I hear that he will have to resign his pro- 
fession, his state of health is so bad, and a country life is 
especially prescribed for him. I am in some hopes of tempt- 
ing him here, as I learn he has but little to depend on if he 
gives up his profession.” 

“ A Captain James ! an invalid captain ! ” 

“You think I am asking too great a favour,” continued 
my lady. (I never could tell how far it was simplicity, or 
how far a kind of innocent malice, that made her misinterpret 
Mr. Smithson’s words and looks as she did.) “ But he is 
not a post-captain, only a commander, and his pension will 
be but small. I may be able, by offering him country air 
and a healthy occupation, to restore him to health.” 

“ Occupation ! My lady, may T ask how a sailor is to 
manage land ? Why, your tenants will laugh him to 
scorn.” 

“ My tenants, I trust, will not behave so ill as to laugh at 
any one I choose to set over them. Captain James has had 
experience in managing men. He has remarkable practical 
talents, and great common sense, as I hear from every one. 
But, whatever he may be, the affair rests between him and 
myself. I can only say I shall esteem myself fortunate if 
he comes.” 

There was no more to be said, after my lady spoke in 
this manner. I had heard her mention Captain James 
before, as a middy who had been very kind to her son Urian. 
I thought I remembered then, that she had mentioned that 
his family circumstances were not very prosperous. But, I 
confess that, little as I knew of the management of land, I 
quite sided with Mr. Smithson. He, silently prohibited from 
again speaking to my lady on the subject, opened his mind 
to Miss Galindo, from whom I was pretty sure to hear all 

x?8 


My Lady Ludlow 

the opinions and news of the household and village. She 
had taken a great fancy to me, because she said I talked so 
agreeably. I believe it was because I listened so well. 

“ Well, have you heard the news,” she began, “ about 
this Captain J ames ? A sailor — with a wooden leg, I have 
no doubt. What would the poor, dear, deceased master 
have said to it, if he had known who was to be his successor ! 
My dear, I have often thought of the postman’s bringing me 
a letter as one of the pleasures I shall miss in heaven. But, 
really, I think Mr. Horner may be thankful he has got out 
of the reach of news ; or else he would hear of Mr. Smith- 
son’s having made up to the Birmingham baker, and of this 
one-legged captain coming to dot-and-go-one over the estate. 
I suppose he will look after the labourers through a spy- 
glass. I only hope he won’t stick in the mud with his 
wooden leg ; for I, for one, won’t help him out. Yes, I 
would,” said she, correcting herself ; “ I would, for my lady’s 
sake.” 

“ But are you sure he has a wooden leg ? ” asked I. “ I 
heard Lady Ludlow tell Mr. Smithson about him, and she 
only spoke of him as wounded.” 

“ Well, sailors are almost always wounded in the leg. 
Look at Greenwich Hospital ! I should say there were 
twenty one-legged pensioners to one without an arm there. 
But, say he has got half-a-dozen legs : what has he to do 
with managing land ? I shall think him very impudent if 
he comes, taking advantage of my lady’s kind heart.” 

However, come he did. In a month from that time, the 
carriage was sent to meet Captain James ; just as three 
years before it had been sent to meet me. His coming had 
been so much talked about that we were all as curious as 
possible to see him, and to know how so unusual an experi- 
ment, as it seemed to us, would answer. But, before I tell 
you anything about our new agent, I must speak of some- 
thing quite as interesting, and I really think quite as impor- 
tant. And this was my lady’s making friends with Harry 
Gregson. I do believe she did it for Mr. Homer’s sake; 

179 


My Lady Ludlow 

but, of course, I can only conjecture why my lady did any- 
thing. But I heard one day, from Mary Legard, that my 
lady had sent for Harry to come and see her, if he was well 
enough to walk so far ; and the next day he was shown into 
the room he had been in once before under such unlucky 
circumstances. 

The lad looked pale enough, as he stood propping himself 
up on his crutch, and, the instant my lady saw him, she 
bade John Footman place a stool for him to sit down upon 
while she spoke to him. It might be his paleness that 
gave his whole face a more refined and gentle look ; but I 
suspect it was that the boy was apt to take impressions, and 
that Mr. Horner’s grave, dignified ways, and Mr. Gray’s 
tender and quiet manners, had altered him ; and then the 
thoughts of illness and death seem to turn many of us into 
gentlemen and gentlewomen, as long as such thoughts are 
in our minds. We cannot speak loudly or angrily at such 
times ; we are not apt to be eager about mere worldly things, 
for our very awe at our quickened sense of the nearness of 
the invisible world makes us calm and serene about the 
petty trifles of to-day. At least, I know that was the ex- 
planation Mr. Gray once gave me of what we all thought 
the great improvement in Harry Gregson’s way of behaving. 

My lady hesitated so long about what she had best say, 
that Harry grew a little frightened at her silence. A few 
months ago it would have surprised me more than it did 
now; but since my lord her son’s death she had seemed 
altered in many ways — more uncertain and distrustful of 
herself, as it were. 

At last she said, and I think the tears were in her eyes : 
“ My poor little fellow, you have had a narrow escape with 
your life since I saw you last.” 

To this there was nothing to be said but “ Yes ” ; and 
again there was silence. 

“ And you have lost a good, kind friend in Mr. 
Horner.” 

The boy’s lips worked, and I think he said “Please, 
180 


My Lady Ludlow 

don’t.” But I can’t be sure ; at any rate, my lady went 
on — 

“ And so have I — a good, kind friend he was to both of 
us ; and to you he wished to show his kindness in even a 
more generous way than he has done. Mr. Gray has told 
you about his legacy to you, has he not ? ” 

There was no sign of eager joy on the lad’s face, as if he 
realised the power and pleasure of having what to him must 
have seemed like a fortune. 

“ Mr. Gray said as how he had left me a matter of 
money.” 

“ Yes, he has left you two hundred pounds.” 

“ But I would rather have had him alive, my lady,” he 
burst out, sobbing as if his heart would break. 

“ My lad, I believe you. We would rather have had our 
dead alive, would we not? and there is nothing in money 
that can comfort us for their loss. But you know — Mr. 
Gray has told you — who has appointed all our times to die. 
Mr. Horner was a good, just man ; and has done well and 
kindly, both by me and you. You perhaps do not know ” 
(and now I understood what my lady had been making up 
her mind to say to Harry, all the time she was hesitating 
how to begin) “ that Mr. Horner, at one time, meant to 
leave you a great deal more : probably all he had, with the 
exception of a legacy to his old clerk, Morrison. But he 
knew that this estate — on which my forefathers had lived 
for six hundred years — was in debt, and that I had no 
immediate chance of paying off this debt ; and yet he felt 
that it was a very sad thing for an old property like this to 
belong in part to those other men, who had lent the money. 
You understand me, I think, my little man ? ” said she, 
questioning Harry’s face. 

He had left off crying, and was trying to understand, 
with all his might and main ; and I think he had got a 
pretty good general idea of the state of affairs ; though pro- 
bably he was puzzled by the term “ the estate being in 
debt.” But he was sufficiently interested to want my lady 

181 


My Lady Ludlow 

to go on ; and he nodded his head at her, to signify this 
to her. 

“ So Mr. Horner took the money which he once meant 
to be yours, and has left the greater part of it to me, with 
the intention of helping me to pay off this debt I have told 
you about. It will go a long way, and I shall try hard to 
save the rest, and then I shall die happy in leaving the land 
free from debt.” She paused. “ But I shall not die happy 
in thinking of you. I do not know if having money, or even 
having a great estate and much honour, is a good thing for 
any of us. But God sees fit that some of us should be called 
to this condition, and it is our duty then to stand to our posts, 
like brave soldiers. Now, Mr. Horner intended you to have 
this money first. I shall only call it borrowing from you, 
Harry Gregson, if I take it and use it to pay off the debt. I 
shall pay Mr. Gray interest on this money, because he is 
to stand as your guardian, as it were, till you come of age ; 
and he must fix what ought to be done with it, so as to fit 
you for spending the principal rightly when the estate can 
repay it you. I suppose, now, it will be right for you to be 
educated. That will be another snare that will come with 
your money. But have courage, Harry. Both education 
and money may be used rightly, if we only pray against the 
temptations they bring with them.” 

Harry could make no answer, though I am sure he 
understood it all. My lady wanted to get him to talk to her 
a little, by way of becoming acquainted with what was 
passing in his mind ; and she asked him what he would like 
to have done with his money, if he could have part of it 
now? To such a simple question, involving no talk about 
feelings, his answer came readily enough. 

“ Build a cottage for father, with stairs in it, and give 
Mr. Gray a school-house. Oh, father does so want Mr. 
Gray for to have his wish ! Father saw all the stones lying 
quarried and hewn on Farmer Hale’s land ; Mr. Gray had 
paid for them all himself. And father said he would work 
night and day, and little Tommy should carry mortar, if the 

182 


My Lady Ludlow 

parson would let him, sooner than that he should be fretted 
and frabbed as he was, with no one giving him a helping 
hand or a kind word.” 

Harry knew nothing of my lady’s part in the affair ; that 
was very clear. My lady kept silence. 

“If I might have a piece of my money, I would buy 
land from Mr. Brooke ; he has got a bit to sell just at the 
corner of Hendon Lane, and I would give it to Mr. Gray ; 
and, perhaps, if your ladyship thinks I may be leam’d 
again, I might grow up into the schoolmaster.” 

“ You are a good boy,” said my lady. “ But there are 
more things to be thought of, in carrying out such a plan, 
than you are aware of. However, it shall be tried.” 

“ The school, my lady ? ” I exclaimed, almost thinking 
she did not know what she was saying. 

“ Yes, the school. For Mr. Horner’s sake, for Mr. 
Gray’s sake, and last, not least, for this lad’s sake, I will 
give the new plan a trial. Ask Mr. Gray to come up to me 
this afternoon about the land he wants. He need not go to 
a Dissenter for it. And tell your father he shall have a 
good share in the building of it, and Tommy shall carry the 
mortar.” 

“ And I may be schoolmaster? ” asked Harry eagerly. 

“ We’ll see about that,” said my lady, amused. “ It will 
be some time before that plan comes to pass, my little 
fellow.” 

And now to return to Captain James. My first account 
of him was from Miss Galindo. 

“ He’s not above thirty ; and I must just pack up my 
pens and my paper, and be off ; for it would be the height of 
impropriety for me to be staying here as his clerk. It was 
all very well in the old master’s days. But here am I, not 
fifty till next May, and this young, unmarried man, who is 
not even a widower ! Oh, there would be no end of gossip. 
Besides, he looks as askance at me as I do at him. My 
black silk gown had no effect. He’s afraid I shall marry 
him. But I won’t ; he may feel himself quite safe from 

1&3 


My Lady Ludlow 

that. And Mr. Smithson has been recommending a clerk to 
my lady. She would far rather keep me on ; but I can’t 
stop. I really could not think it proper.” 

“ What sort of a looking man is he ? ” 

“ Oh, nothing particular. Short, and brown, and sun- 
burnt. I did not think it became me to look at him. Well, 
now for the nightcaps. I should have grudged any one 
else doing them, for I have got such a pretty pattern ! ” 

But when it came to Miss Galindo’s leaving, there was a 
great misunderstanding between her and my lady. Miss 
Galindo had imagined that my lady had asked her as a 
favour to copy the letters, and enter the accounts, and had 
agreed to do the work without the notion of being paid for 
so doing. She had, now and then, grieved over a very 
profitable order for needlework passing out of her hands on 
account of her not having time to do it, because of her 
occupation at the Hall ; but she had never hinted this to my 
lady, but gone on. cheerfully at her writing as long as her 
clerkship was required. My lady was annoyed that she had 
not made her intention of paying Miss Galindo more clear, 
in the first conversation she had had with her ; but I suppose 
that she had been too delicate to be very explicit with regard 
to money matters ; and now Miss Galindo was quite hurt at 
my lady’s wanting to pay her for what she had done in such 
right-down good-will. 

“No,” Miss Galindo said ; “ my own dear lady, you may 
be as angry with me as you like, but don’t offer me money. 
Think of six-and-twenty years ago, and poor Arthur, and as 
you were to me then ! Besides, I wanted money — I don’t 
disguise it — for a particular purpose ; and when I found that 
(God bless you for asking me !) I could do you a service, I 
turned it over in my mind, and I gave up one plan, and took 
up another, and it’s all settled now. Bessy is to leave school 
and come and live with me. Don’t, please, offer me money 
again. You don’t know how glad I have been to do any- 
thing for you. Have not I, Margaret Dawson ? Did you 
not hear me say, one day, I would cut off my hand for my 

184 


My Lady Ludlow 

lady; for am I a stock or a stone, that I should forget 
kindness ? Oh, I have been so glad to work for you ! And 
now Bessy is coming here; and no one knows anything 
about her — as if she had done anything wrong, poor child ! ” 
“ Dear Miss Galindo,” replied my lady, “ I will never ask 
you. to take money again. Only I thought it was quite 
understood between us. And you know you have taken 
money for a set of morning wrappers, before now.” 

“ Yes, my lady ; but that was not confidential. Now I 
was so proud to have something to do for you confidentially.” 

“ But who is Bessy ? ” asked my lady. “ I do not under- 
stand who she is, or why she is to come and five with you. 
Dear Miss Galindo, you must honour me by being con- 
fidential with me in your turn ! ” 


CHAPTEE XIII 

I had always understood that Miss Galindo had once been 
in much better circumstances, but I had never liked to ask 
any questions respecting her. But about this time many 
things came out respecting her former fife, which I will try 
and arrange : not, however, in the order in which I heard 
them, but rather as they occurred. 

Miss Galindo was the daughter of a clergyman in West- 
moreland. Her father was the younger brother of a baronet, 
his ancestor having been one of those of James the First’s 
creation. This baronet-uncle of Miss Galindo was one of 
the queer, out-of-the-way people who were bred at that time, 
and in that northern district of England. I never heard 
much of him from any one, besides this one great fact ; that 
he had early disappeared from his family, which indeed only 
consisted of a brother and sister who died unmarried, and 
lived no one knew where — somewhere on the Continent, it 
was supposed, for he had never returned from the grand 

185 


My Lady Ludlow 

tour which he had been sent to make, according to the 
general fashion of the day, as soon as he had left Oxford. 
He corresponded occasionally with his brother the clergy- 
man ; but the letters passed through a banker’s hands ; the 
banker being pledged to secrecy, and, as he told Mr. Galindo, 
having the penalty, if he broke his pledge, of losing the 
whole profitable business, and of having the management of 
the baronet’s affairs taken out of his hands, without any 
advantage accruing to the inquirer; for Sir Lawrence had 
told Messrs. Graham that, in case his place of residence was 
revealed by them, not only would he cease to bank with 
them, but instantly take measures to baffle any future 
inquiries as to his whereabouts, by removing to some distant 
country. 

Sir Lawrence paid a certain sum of money to his brother’s 
account every year; but the time of this payment varied, 
and it was sometimes eighteen or nineteen months between 
the deposits ; then, again, it would not be above a quarter of 
the time, showing that he intended it to be annual ; but, as 
this intention was never .expressed in words, it was im- 
possible to rely upon it, and a great deal of this money was 
swallowed up by the necessity Mr. Galindo felt himself 
under of living in the large, old, rambling family mansion, 
which had been one of Sir Lawrence’s rarely expressed 
desires. Mr. and Mrs. Galindo often planned to live upon 
their own small fortune and the income derived from the 
living (a vicarage, of which the great tithes went to Sir 
Lawrence as lay impropriator), so as to put by the pay- 
ments made by the baronet, for the benefit of Laurentia — 
our Miss Galindo. But I suppose they found it difficult to 
live economically in a large house, even though they had it 
rent free. They had to keep up with hereditary neighbours 
and friends, and could hardly help doing it in the hereditary 
manner. 

One of these neighbours, a Mr. Gibson, had a son a few 
years older than Laurentia. The families were sufficiently 
intimate for the young people to see a good deal of each 

186 


My Lady Ludlow 

other ; and I was told that this young Mr. Mark Gibson was 
an unusually prepossessing man (he seemed to have im- 
pressed every one who spoke of him to me as being a hand- 
some, manly, kind-hearted fellow), just what a girl would be 
sure to find most agreeable. The parents either forgot that 
their children were growing up to man’s and woman’s estate, 
or thought that the intimacy and probable attachment would 
be no bad thing, even if it did lead to a marriage. Still, 
nothing was ever said by young Gibson till later on, when 
it was too late, as it turned out. He went to and from 
Oxford ; he shot and fished with Mr. Galindo, or came to 
the Mere to skate in winter-time ; was asked to accompany 
Mr. Galindo to the Hall, as the latter returned to the quiet 
dinner with his wife and daughter ; and so, and so, it went 
on, nobody much knew how, until one day, when Mr. 
Galindo received a formal letter from his brother’s bankers, 
announcing Sir Lawrence’s death, of malaria fever, at 
Albano, and congratulating Sir Hubert on his accession to 
the estates and the baronetcy. “ The king is dead — Long 
live the king ! ” as I have since heard that the French 
express it. 

Sir Hubert and his wife were greatly surprised. Sir 
Lawrence was but two years older than his brother; and 
they had never heard of any illness till they heard of his 
death. They were sorry ; very much shocked ; but still a 
little elated at the succession to the baronetcy and estates. 
The London bankers had managed everything well. There 
was a large sum of ready money in their hands, at Sir 
Hubert’s service, until he should touch his rents, the rent- 
roll being eight thousand a year. And only Laurentia to 
inherit it all ! Her mother, a poor clergyman’s daughter, 
began to plan all sorts of fine marriages for her; nor was 
her father much behind his wife in his ambition. They 
took her up to London, when they went to buy new carriages, 
and dresses, and furniture. And it was then and there she 
made my lady’s acquaintance. How it was that they came 
to take a fancy to each other I cannot say. My lady was 

187 


My Lady Ludlow 

of the old nobility — grand, composed, gentle, and stately in 
her ways. Miss Galindo must always have been hurried 
in her manner, and her energy must have shown itself in 
inquisitiveness and oddness even in her youth. But I don’t 
pretend to account for things : I only narrate them. And 
the fact was this : — that the elegant, fastidious countess 
was attracted to the country girl, who on her part almost 
worshipped my lady. My lady’s notice of their daughter 
made her parents think, I suppose, that there was no match 
that she might not command : she, the heiress of eight 
thousand a year, and visiting about among earls and dukes. 
So, when they came back to their old Westmoreland Hall, 
and Mark Gibson rode over to offer his hand and his heart, 
and prospective estate of nine hundred a year, to his old 
companion and playfellow, Laurentia, Sir Hubert and Lady 
Galindo made very short work of it. They refused him 
plumply themselves ; and, when he begged to be allowed to 
speak to Laurentia, they found some excuse for refusing 
him the opportunity of so doing, until they had talked to 
her themselves, and brought up every argument and fact in 
their power to convince her — a plain girl, and conscious of 
her plainness — that Mr. Mark Gibson had never thought 
of her in the way of marriage till after her father’s accession 
to his fortune, and that it was the estate — not the young 
lady — that he was in love with. I suppose it will never 
be known in this world how far this supposition of theirs 
was true. My Lady Ludlow had always spoken as if it 
was ; but perhaps events, which came to her knowledge 
about this time, altered her opinion. At any rate, the end 
of it was, Laurentia refused Mark, and almost broke her 
heart in doing so. He discovered the suspicions of Sir 
Hubert and Lady Galindo, and that they had persuaded 
their daughter to share in them. So he flung off with high 
words, saying that they did not know a true heart when 
they met with one ; and that, although he had never offered 
till after Sir Lawrence’s death, yet his father knew all 
along that he had been attached to Laurentia, only that he, 

1 88 


My Lady Ludlow 

being the eldest of five children, and having as yet no 
profession, had had to conceal, rather than to express, an 
attachment which, in those days, he had believed was 
reciprocated. He had always meant to study for the bar, 
and the end of all he had hoped for had been to earn a 
moderate income, which he, might ask Laurentia to share. 
This, or something • like it, was what he said. But his 
reference to his father cut two ways. Old Mr. Gibson was 
known to be very keen about money. It was just as likely 
that he would urge Mark to make love to the heiress, now 
she was an heiress, as that he would have restrained him 
previously, as Mark said he had done. When this was 
repeated to Mark, he became proudly reserved, or sullen, 
and said that Laurentia, at any rate, might have known 
him better. He left the country, and went up to London 
to study law soon afterwards; and Sir Hubert and Lady 
Galindo thought they were well rid of him. But Laurentia 
never ceased reproaching herself, and never did to her dying 
day, as I believe. The words, “ She might have known me 
better,” told to her by some kind friend or other, rankled in 
her mind, and were never forgotten. Her father and mother 
took her up to London the next year ; but she did not care 
to visit — dreaded going out even for a drive, lest she should 
see Mark Gibson’s reproachful eyes — pined and lost her 
health. Lady Ludlow saw this change with regret, and 
was told the cause by Lady Galindo,* who, of course, gave 
her own version of Mark’s conduct and motives. My lady 
never spoke to Miss Galindo about it, but tried constantly 
to interest and please her. It was at this time that my lady 
told Miss Galindo so much about her own early life, and 
about Hanbury, that Miss Galindo resolved, if ever she 
could, she would go and see the old place which her friend 
loved so well. The end of it all was, that she came to live 
there, as we know. 

But a great change was to come first. Before Sir Hubert 
and Lady Galindo had left London on this, their second 
visit, they had a letter from the lawyer, whom they employed, 

189 


My Lady Ludlow 

saying that Sir Lawrence had left an heir, his legitimate 
child by an Italian woman of low rank ; at least legal claims 
to the title and property had been sent in to him on the 
boy’s behalf. Sir Lawrence had always been a man oi 
adventurous and artistic, rather than of luxurious tastes ; 
and it was supposed, when all came to be proved at the 
trial, that he was captivated by the free, beautiful life they 
lead in Italy, and had married this Neapolitan fisherman’s 
daughter, who had people about her shrewd enough to see 
that the ceremony was legally performed. She and her 
husband had wandered about the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean for years, leading a happy, careless, irresponsible life, 
unencumbered by any duties except those connected with a 
rather numerous family. It was enough for her that they 
never wanted money, and that her husband’s love was 
always continued to her. She hated the name of England — 
wicked, cold, heretic England — and avoided the mention of 
any subjects connected with her husband’s early life. So 
that, when he died at Albano, she was almost roused out of 
her vehement grief to anger with the Italian doctor, who 
declared that he must write to a certain address to announce 
the death of Lawrence Galindo. For some time, she feared 
lest English barbarians might come down upon her, making 
a claim to the children. She hid herself and them in the 
Abruzzi, living upon the sale of what furniture and jewels 
Sir Lawrence had died possessed of. When these failed, 
she returned to Naples, which she had not visited since her 
marriage. Her father was dead ; but her brother inherited 
some of his keenness. He interested the priests, who made 
inquiries and found that the Galindo succession was worth 
securing to an heir of the true faith. They stirred about it, 
obtained advice at the English Embassy; and hence that 
letter to the lawyers, calling upon Sir Hubert to relinquish 
title and property, and to refund what money he had ex- 
pended. He was vehement in his opposition to this claim. 
He could not bear to think of his brother having married a 
foreigner — a Papist, a fisherman’s daughter; nay, of his 

190 


My Lady Ludlow 

having become a Papist himself. He was in despair at the 
thought of his ancestral# property going to the issue of such 
a marriage. He fought tooth and nail, making enemies of 
his relations, and losing almost all his own private property ; 
for he would go on against the lawyer’s advice, long after 
every one was convinced except himself and his wife. At 
last he was conquered. He gave up his living in gloomy 
despair. He would have changed his name if he could, so 
desirous was he to obliterate all tie between himself and the 
mongrel Papist baronet and his Italian mother, and all the 
succession of children and nurses who came to take posses- 
sion of the Hall soon after Mr. Hubert Galindo’s departure, 
stayed there one winter, and then flitted back to Naples with 
gladness and delight. Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Galindo lived 
in London. He had obtained a curacy somewhere in the 
city. They would have been thankful now if Mr. Mark 
Gibson had renewed his offer. No one could accuse him of 
mercenary motives if he had done so. Because he did not 
come forward, as they wished, they brought his silence up as 
a justification of what they had previously attributed to him. 
I don’t know what Miss Galindo thought herself ; but Lady 
Ludlow has told me how she shrank from hearing her 
parents abuse him. Lady Ludlow supposed that he was 
aware that they were living in London. His father must 
have known the fact, and it was curious if he had never 
named it to his son. Besides, the name was very un- 
common ; and it was unlikely that it should never come 
across him, in the advertisements of charity sermons which 
the new and rather eloquent curate of Saint Mark’s East 
was asked to preach. All this time Lady Ludlow never lost 
sight of them, for Miss Galindo’s sake. And when the 
father and mother died, it was my lady who upheld Miss 
Galindo in her determination not to apply for any provision 
to her cousin, the Italian baronet, but rather to live upon 
the hundred a year which had been settled on her mother 
and the children of his son Hubert’s marriage by the old 
grandfather, Sir Lawrence. 

191 


My Lady Ludlow 

Mr. Mark Gibson had risen to some eminence as a bar- 
rister on the Northern Circuit, but had died unmarried in the 
lifetime of his father, a victim (so people said) to intempe- 
rance. Doctor Trevor, the physician who had been called in 
to Mr. Gray and Harry Gregson, had married a sister of his. 
And that was all my lady knew about the Gibson family. 
But who was Bessy ? 

That mystery and secret came out, too, in process of 
time. Miss Galindo had been to Warwick, some years 
before I arrived at Hanbury, on some kind of business or 
shopping, which can only be transacted in a county town. 
There was an old Westmoreland connection between her 
and Mrs. Trevor, though I believe the latter was too young 
to have been made aware of her brother’s offer to Miss 
Galindo at the time when it took place ; and such affairs, if 
they are unsuccessful, are seldom spoken about in the 
gentleman’s family afterwards. But the Gibsons and 
Galindos had been county neighbours too long for the con- 
nection not to be kept up between two members settled far 
away from their early homes. Miss Galindo always desired 
her parcels to be sent to Doctor Trevor’s, when she went to 
Warwick for shopping purposes. If she were going any 
journey, and the coach did not come through Warwick as 
soon as she arrived (in my lady’s coach or otherwise) from 
Hanbury, she went to Doctor Trevor’s to wait. She was as 
much expected to sit down to the household meals as if she 
had been one of the family ; and in after years it was Mrs. 
Trevor who managed her repository business for her. 

So, on the day I spoke of, she had gone to Doctor 
Trevor’s to rest, and possibly to dine. The post, in those 
times, came in at all hours of the morning ; and Doctor 
Trevor’s letters had not arrived until after his departure on 
his morning round. Miss Galindo was sitting down to 
dinner with Mrs. Trevor and her seven children, when the 
Doctor came in. He was flurried and uncomfortable, and 
hurried the children away as soon as he decently could. 
Then (rather feeling Miss Galindo’s presence an advantage, 

IQ2 


My Lady Ludlow 

both as a present restraint on the violence of his wife’s 
grief, and as a consoler when he was absent on his after- 
noon round), he told Mrs. Trevor of her brother’s death. 
He had been taken ill on circuit, and had hurried back to 
his chambers in London only to die. She cried terribly ; 
but Doctor Trevor said afterwards, he never noticed that 
Miss Galindo cared much about it one way or another. She 
helped him to soothe his wife, promised to stay with her all 
the afternoon instead of returning to Hanbury, and after- 
wards offered to remain with her while the Doctor went to 
attend the funeral. When they heard of the old love-story 
between the dead man and Miss Galindo — brought up by 
mutual friends in Westmoreland, in the review which we are 
all inclined to take of the events of a man’s life when he 
comes to die — they tried to remember Miss Galindo’s speeches 
and ways of going on during this visit. She was a little pale, 
a little silent ; her eyes were sometimes swollen, and her 
nose red ; but she was at an age when such appearances are 
generally attributed to a bad cold in the head, rather than to 
any more sentimental reason. They felt towards her as 
towards an old friend, a kindly, useful, eccentric old maid. 
She did not expect more, or wish them to remember that 
she might once have had other hopes, and more youthful 
feelings. Doctor Trevor thanked her very warmly for stay- 
ing with his wife, when he returned home from London 
(where the funeral had taken place). He begged Miss 
Galindo to stay with them, when the children were gone 
to bed, and she was preparing to leave the husband and wife 
by themselves. He told her and his wife many particulars 
— then paused — then went on — 

“ And Mark has left a child — a little girl ” 

“ But he never was married ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Trevor. 

“ A little girl,” continued her husband, “ whose mother, 
I conclude, is dead. At any rate, the child was in possession 
of his chambers ; she and an old nurse, who seemed to have 
the charge of everything, and has cheated poor Mark, I should 
fancy, not a little.” 


193 


o 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ But the child ! ” asked Mrs. Trevor, still almost breath- 
less with astonishment. “ How do you know it is his ? ” 

“ The nurse told me it was, with great appearance of 
indignation at my doubting it. I asked the little thing her 
name, and all 1 could get was ‘ Bessy ! ’ and a cry of ‘ Me 
wants papa ! ’ The nurse said the mother was dead, and 
she knew no more about it than that Mr. Gibson had engaged 
her to take care of the little girl, calling it his child. One or 
two of his lawyer friends, whom I met with at the funeral, 
told me they were aware of the existence of the child.” 

“ What is to be done with her.? ” asked Mrs. Gibson. 

“ Nay, I don’t know,” replied he. “ Mark has hardly left 
assets enough to pay his debts, and your father is not inclined 
to come forward.” 

That night, as Doctor Trevor sat in his study, after his 
wife had gone to bed, Miss Galindo knocked at his door. 
She and he had a long conversation. The result was that he 
accompanied Miss Galindo up to town the next day ; that 
they took possession of the little Bessy, and she was brought 
down, and placed at nurse at a farm in the country near 
Warwick ; Miss Galindo undertaking to pay one-half of the 
expense, and to furnish her with clothes, and Dr. Trevor 
undertaking that the remaining half should be furnished by 
the Gibson family, or by himself in their default. 

Miss Galindo was not fond of children ; and I dare say 
she dreaded taking this child to live with her for more reasons 
than one. My Lady Ludlow could not endure any mention of 
illegitimate children. It was a principle of hers that society 
ought to ignore them. And I believe Miss Galindo had 
always agreed with her until now, when the thing came home 
to her womanly heart. Still she shrank from having this 
child of some strange woman under her roof. She went 
over to see it from time to time ; she worked at its clothes 
long after every one thought she was in bed ; and, when the 
time came for Bessy to be sent to school, Miss Galindo 
laboured away more diligently than ever, in order to pay the 
increased expense. For the Gibson family had, at first, paid 

194 


My Lady Ludlow 

their part of the compact, but with unwillingness and grudging 
hearts ; then they had left it off altogether, and it fell hard 
on Dr. Trevor with his twelve children ; and, latterly, Miss 
Galindo had taken upon herself almost all the burden. One 
can hardly live and labour, and plan and make sacrifices, for 
any human creature, without learning to love it. And Bessy 
loved Miss Galindo, too, for all the poor girl’s scanty pleasures 
came from her, and Miss Galindo had always a kind word, 
and, latterly, many a kind caress, for Mark Gibson’s child ; 
whereas, if she went to Dr. Trevor’s for her holiday, she was 
overlooked and neglected in that bustling family, who seemed 
to think that if she had comfortable board and lodging under 
their roof, it was enough. 

I am sure, now, that Miss Galindo had often longed to 
have Bessy to live with her ; but, as long as she could pay 
for her being at school, she did not like to take so bold a 
step as bringing her home, knowing what the effect of the 
consequent explanation would be on my lady. And as the 
girl was now more than seventeen, and past the age when 
young ladies are usually kept at school ; and, as there was 
no great demand for governesses in those days, and as Bessy 
had never been taught any trade by which to earn her own 
living, why, I don’t exactly see what could have been done 
but for Miss Galindo to bring her to her own home in Han- 
bury. For, although the child had grown up lately, in a kind 
of unexpected manner, into a young woman, Miss Galindo 
might have kept her at school for a year longer, if she could 
have afforded it ; but this was impossible when she became 
Mr. Horner’s clerk, and relinquished all the payment of her 
repository work ; and perhaps, after all, she was not sorry to 
be compelled to take the step she was longing for. At any 
rate, Bessy came to live with Miss Galindo in a very few 
weeks from the time when Captain James set Miss Galindo 
free to superintend her own domestic economy again. 

For a long time, I knew nothing about this new inhabi- 
tant of Hanbury. My lady never mentioned her in any way. 
This was in accordance with Lady Ludlow’s well-known 

195 


My Lady Ludlow 

principles. She neither saw nor heard, nor was in any way 
cognisant of the existence of those who had no legal right to 
exist at all. If Miss Galindo had hoped to have an exception 
made in Bessy’s favour, she was mistaken. My lady sent a 
note inviting Miss Galindo herself to tea one evening, about 
a month after Bessy came ; but Miss Galindo “ had a cold 
and could not come.” The next time she was invited, she 
“ had an engagement at home ” — a step nearer to the absolute 
truth. And the third time, she “ had a young friend staying 
with her whom she was unable to leave.” My lady accepted 
every excuse as bond fide, and took no further notice. I missed 
Miss Galindo very much ; we all did ; for, in the days when 
she was clerk, she was sure to come in and find the oppor- 
tunity of saying something amusing to some of us before she 
went away. And I, as an invalid, or perhaps from natural 
tendency, was particularly fond of little bits of village gossip. 
There was no Mr. Horner — he even had come in, now and 
then, with formal, stately pieces of intelligence — and there 
was no Miss Galindo in these days. I missed her much. 
And so did my lady, I am sure. Behind all her quiet, sedate 
manner, I am certain her heart ached sometimes for a few 
words from Miss Galindo, who seemed to have absented 
herself altogether from the Hall now Bessy was come. 

Captain James might be very sensible, and all that; but 
not even my lady could call him a substitute for the old 
familiar friends. He was a thorough sailor, as sailors were 
in those days — swore a good deal, drank a good deal (with- 
out its ever affecting him in the least), and was very prompt 
and kind-hearted in all his actions ; but he was not accustomed 
to women, as my lady once said, and would judge in all 
things for himself. My lady had expected, I think, to find 
some one who would take his notions on the management of 
her estate from her ladyship’s own self ; but he spoke as if 
he were responsible for the good management of the whole 
and must, consequently, be allowed full liberty of action. 
He had been too long in command over men at sea to like 
to be directed by a woman in anything he undertook, even 

196 


My Lady Ludlow 

though that woman was my lady. I suppose this was the 
common-sense my lady spoke of ; but, when common-sense 
goes against us, I don’t think we value it quite so much as 
we ought to do. 

Lady Ludlow was proud of her personal superintendence 
of her own estate. She liked to tell us how her father used 
to take her with him in his rides, and bid her observe this 
and that, and on no account to allow such and such things 
to be done. But I have heard that, the first time she told 
all this to Captain James, he told her point-blank that he 
had heard from Mr. Smithson that the farms were much 
neglected and the rents sadly behind-hand, and that he 
meant to set to in good earnest and study agriculture, and 
see how he could remedy the state of things. My lady 
would, I am sure, be greatly surprised ; but what could she 
do ? Here was the very man she had chosen herself, setting 
to with all his energy to conquer the defect of ignorance, 
which was all that those who had presumed to offer her 
ladyship advice had ever had to say against him. Captain 
James read Arthur Young’s “ Tours ” in all his spare time, 
as long as he was an invalid; and shook his head at my 
lady’s accounts as to how the land had been cropped or 
left fallow from time immemorial. Then he set to, and tried 
too many new experiments at once. My lady looked on in 
dignified silence ; but all the farmers and tenants were in 
an uproar, and prophesied a hundred failures. Perhaps 
fifty did occur ; they were only half as many as Lady 
Ludlow had feared; but they were twice as many — four, 
eight times as many — as the captain had anticipated. His 
openly-expressed disappointment made him popular again. 
The rough country-people could not have understood silent 
and dignified regret at the failure of his plans ; but they 
sympathised with a man who swore at his ill success — 
sympathised, even while they chuckled over his discomfiture. 
Mr. Brooke, the retired tradesman, did not cease blaming 
him for not succeeding, and for swearing. “ But what could 
you expect from a sailor ? ” Mr. Brooke asked, even in my 

197 


My Lady Ludlow 

lady’s hearing; though he might have known Captain James 
was my lady’s own personal choice, from the old friendship 
Mr. Urian had always shown for him. I think it was this 
speech of the Birmingham baker’s that made my lady 
determine to stand by Captain James, and encourage him 
to try again. For she would not allow that her choice had 
been an unwise one, at the bidding (as it were) of a dissenting 
tradesman ; the only person in the neighbourhood, too, who 
had flaunted about in coloured clothes, when all the world 
was in mourning for my lady’s only son. 

Captain James would have thrown the agency up at 
once, if my lady had not felt herself bound to justify the 
wisdom of her choice, by urging him to stay. He was 
much touched by her confidence in him, and swore a great 
oath, that the next year he would make the land such as it 
had never been before for produce. It was not my lady’s 
way to repeat anything she had heard, especially to another 
person’s disadvantage. So, I don’t think she ever told 
Captain James of Mr. Brooke’s speech about a sailor’s being 
likely to mismanage the property ; and the captain was too 
anxious to succeed in this, the second, year of his trial, to 
be above going to the flourishing, shrewd Mr. Brooke, and 
asking for his advice as to the best method of working the 
estate. I dare say, if Miss Galindo had been as intimate as 
formerly at the Hall, we should all of us have heard of this 
new acquaintance of the agent’s long before we did. As it 
was, I am sure my lady never dreamed that the captain, 
who held opinions that were even more Church and King 
than her own, could ever have made friends with a Baptist 
baker from Birmingham, even to serve her ladyship’s own 
interests in the most loyal manner. 

We heard of it first from Mr. Gray, who came now often 
to see my lady; for neither he nor she could forget the 
solemn tie which the fact of his being the person to acquaint 
her with my lord’s death had created between them. For 
true and holy words spoken at that time, though having no 
reference to aught below the solemn subjects of life and 

198 


My Lady Ludlow 

death, had made her withdraw her opposition to Mr. Gray’s 
wish about establishing a village school. She had sighed a 
little, it is true, and was even yet more apprehensive than 
hopeful as to the result ; but, almost as if as a memorial to 
my lord, she had allowed a kind of rough schoolhouse to be 
built on the green, just by the church ; and had gently used 
the power she undoubtedly had, in expressing her strong 
wish that the boys might only be taught to read and write, 
and the first four rules of arithmetic ; while the girls were 
only to learn to read, and to add up in their heads, and 
the rest of the time to work at mending their own clothes, 
knitting stockings, and spinning. My lady presented the 
school with more spinning-wheels than there were girls, and 
requested that there might be a rule that they should have 
spun so many hanks of flax, and knitted so many pairs of 
stockings, before they ever were taught to read at all. After 
all, it was but making the best of a bad job with my poor 
lady — but life was not what it had been to her. I remember 
well the day that Mr. Gray pulled some delicately fine yarn 
(and I was a good judge of those things) out of his pocket, 
and laid it and a capital pair of knitted stockings before my 
lady, as the first-fruits, so to say, of his school. I recollect 
seeing her put on her spectacles, and carefully examine both 
productions. Then she passed them to me. 

“ This is well, Mr. Gray. I am much pleased. You are 
fortunate in your schoolmistress. She has had both proper 
knowledge of womanly things and much patience. Who is 
she ? One out of our village ? ” 

“My lady,” said Mr. Gray, stammering and colouring 
in his old fashion, “ Miss Bessy is so very kind as to teach 
all those sorts of things — Miss Bessy, and Miss Galindo, 
sometimes.” 

My lady looked at him over her spectacles : but she only 
repeated the words “ Miss Bessy,” and paused, as if trying 
i to remember who such a person could be : and he, if he had 
then intended to say more, was quelled by her manner, and 
dropped the subject. He went on to say that he had thought 

199 


My Lady Ludlow 

it his duty to decline the subscription to his school offered 
by Mr. Brooke, because he was a Dissenter ; that he (Mr. 
Gray) feared that Captain James, through whom Mr. Brooke’s 
offer of money had been made, was offended at his refusing 
to accept it from a man who held heterodox opinions ; nay, 
whom Mr. Gray suspected of being infected by Dodwell’s 
heresy. 

“I think there must be some mistake,” said my lady, 
“or I have misunderstood you. Captain James would 
never know enough of a schismatic to be employed by that 
man Brooke in distributing his charities. I should have 
doubted, until now, if Captain James knew him.” 

“ Indeed, my lady, he not only knows him, but is intimate 
with him, I regret to say. I have repeatedly seen the captain 
and Mr. Brooke walking together ; going through the fields 
together ; and people do say ” 

My lady looked up in interrogation at Mr. Gray’s pause. 

“ I disapprove of gossip, and it may be untrue ; but 
people do say that Captain James is very attentive to Miss 
Brooke.” 

“ Impossible ! ” said my lady indignantly. “ Captain 
James is a loyal and religious man. I beg your pardon, Mr. 
Gray; but it is impossible.” 


CHAPTER XIY 

Like many other things which have been declared to be 
impossible, this report of Captain James being attentive to 
Miss Brooke turned out to be very true. 

The mere idea of her agent being on the slightest possible 
terms of acquaintance with the Dissenter, the tradesman, the 
Birmingham democrat, who had come to settle in our good, 
orthodox, aristocratic, and agricultural Hanbury, made my 

200 


My Lady Ludlow 

lady very uneasy. Miss Galindo’s misdemeanour in having 
taken Miss Bessy to live with her, faded into a mistake, a 
mere error of judgment, in comparison with Captain James’s 
intimacy at Yeast House, as the Brookes called their ugly 
square-built farm. My lady talked herself quite into com- 
placency with Miss Galindo, and even Miss Bessy was 
named by her, the first time I had ever been aware that my 
lady recognised her existence ; but — I recollect it was a long 
rainy afternoon, and I sat with her ladyship, and we had 
time and opportunity for a long uninterrupted talk — when- 
ever we had been silent for a little while she began again, 
with something like a wonder how it was that Captain James 
could ever have commenced an acquaintance with “ that 
man Brooke.” My lady recapitulated all the times she 
could remember, that anything had occurred, or been said 
by Captain James which she could now understand as 
throwing light upon the subject. 

“ He said once that he was anxious to bring in the 
Norfolk system of cropping, and spoke a good deal about 
Mr. Coke of Holkham (who, by the way, was no more a 
Coke than I am — collateral in the female line — which 
counts for little or nothing among the great old commoners’ 
families of pure blood), and his new ways of cultivation ; 
of course new men bring in new ways, but it does not 
follow that either are better than the old ways. However, 
Captain James has been very anxious to try turnips and 
bone-manure, and he really is a man of such good sense 
and energy, and was so sorry last year about the failure, 
that I consented ; and now I begin to see my error. I have 
always heard that town bakers adulterate their flour with 
bone-dust; and, of course, Captain James would be aware 
of this, and go to Brooke to inquire where the article was 
to be purchased.” 

My lady always ignored the fact which had sometimes, 
I suspect, been brought under her very eyes during her 
drives, that Mr. Brooke’s few fields were in a state of far 
higher cultivation than her own ; so she could not, of course, 

201 


My Lady Ludlow 

perceive that there was any wisdom to be gained from 
asking the advice of the tradesman turned farmer. 

But, by-and-by, this fact of her agent’s intimacy with 
the person whom in the whole world she most disliked 
(with that sort of dislike in which a large amount of un- 
comfortableness is combined — the dislike which conscientious 
people sometimes feel to another without knowing why, 
and yet which they cannot indulge in with comfort to 
themselves without having a moral reason why), came 
before my lady in many shapes. For, indeed, I am sure 
that Captain James was not a man to conceal or be 
ashamed of one of his actions. I cannot fancy his ever 
lowering his strong loud clear voice, or having a confidential 
conversation with any one. When his crops had failed, 
all the village had known it. He complained, he regretted, 

he was angry, or owned himself a fool, all down the 

village street ; and the consequence was that, although he 
was a far more passionate man than Mr. Horner, all the 
tenants liked him far better. People, in general, take a 
kindlier interest in any one the workings of whose mind 
and heart they can watch and understand, than in a man 
who only lets you know what he has been thinking about 
and feeling by what he does. But Harry Gregson was 
faithful to the memory of Mr. Horner. Miss Galindo has 
told me that she used to watch him hobble out of the way 
of Captain James, as if to accept his notice, however good- 
naturedly given, would have been a kind of treachery to 
his former benefactor. But Gregson (the father) and the 
new agent rather took to each other; and one day, much 
to my surprise, I heard that the “ poaching, tinkering vaga- 
bond,” as the people used to call Gregson when I first 
had come to live at Hanbury, had been appointed game- 
keeper; Mr. Gray standing godfather, as it were, to his 
trustworthiness, if he were trusted with anything ; which 
I thought at the time was rather an experiment — only it 
answered, as many of Mr. Gray’s deeds of daring did. It 
was curious how he was growing to be a kind of autocrat 


202 


My Lady Ludlow 

in the village ; and how unconscious he was of it. He was 
as shy and awkward and nervous as ever in any affair that 
was not of some moral consequence to him. But, as soon 
as he was convinced that a thing was right, he “ shut his 
eyes and ran and butted at it like a ram,” as Captain 
James once expressed it, in talking over something Mr. 
Gray had done. People in the village said, “ they never 
knew what the parson would be at next ; ” or, they might 
have said, “where his reverence would next turn up.” 
For I have heard of his marching right into the middle 
of a set of poachers, gathered together for some desperate 
midnight enterprise, or walking into a public-house that 
lay just beyond the bounds of my lady’s estate, and in 
that extra-parochial piece of ground I named long ago, and 
which was considered the rendezvous of all the ne’er-do- 
weel characters for miles round, and where a parson and 
a constable were held in much the same kind of esteem 
as unwelcome visitors. And yet Mr. Gray had ‘his long 
fits of depression, in which he felt as if he were doing 
nothing, making no way in his work, useless and unprofit- 
able, and better out of the world than in it. In comparison 
with the work he had set himself to do, what he did seemed 
to be nothing. I suppose it was constitutional, those attacks 
of lowness of spirits which he had about this time; per- 
haps a part of the nervousness which made him always 
so awkward when he came to the Hall. Even Mrs. Medli- 
cott, who almost worshipped the ground he trod on, as the 
saying is, owned that Mr. Gray never entered one of my 
lady’s rooms without knocking down something, and too 
often breaking it. He would much sooner have faced a 
desperate poacher than a young lady any day. At least 
so we thought. 

I do not know how it was that it came to pass that my 
lady became reconciled to Miss Galindo about this time. 
Whether it was that her ladyship was weary of the un- 
spoken coolness with her old friend ; or that the specimens of 
delicate sewing and fine spinning at the school had mollified 

203 


My Lady Ludlow 

her towards Miss Bessy ; but I was surprised to learn one 
day that Miss Galindo and her young friend were coming 
that very evening to tea at the Hall. This information was 
given me by Mrs. Medlicott, as a message from my lady, 
who further went on to desire that certain little prepara- 
tions should be made in her own private sitting-room, in 
which the greater part of my days were spent. From the 
nature of these preparations, I became quite aware that my 
lady intended to do honour to her expected visitors. Indeed, 
Lady Ludlow never forgave by halves, as I have known 
some people do. Whoever was coming as a visitor to my 
lady, peeress, or poor nameless girl, there was a certain 
amount of preparation required in order to do them fitting 
honour. I do not mean to say that the preparation was of 
the same degree of importance in each case. I dare say, if 
a peeress had come to visit us at the Hall, the covers would 
have been taken off the furniture in the white drawing-room 
(they never were uncovered all the time I stayed at the Hall), 
because my lady would wish to offer her the ornaments and 
luxuries which this grand visitor (who never came — I wish 
she had ! I did so want to see that furniture uncovered !) 
was accustomed to at home, and to present them to her 
in the best order in which my lady could. The same rule, 
mollified, held good with Miss Galindo. Certain things, in 
which my lady knew she took an interest, were laid out 
ready for her to examine on this very day ; and, what was 
more, great books of prints were laid out, such as I remem- 
bered my lady had brought forth to beguile my own early 
days of illness — Mr. Hogarth’s works, and the like — which 
I was sure were put out for Miss Bessy. 

No one knows how curious I was to see this mysterious 
Miss Bessy — twenty times more mysterious, of course, for 
want of her surname. And then again (to try and account 
for my great curiosity, of which in recollection I am more 
than half ashamed), I had been leading the quiet monotonous 
life of a crippled invalid for many years — shut up from any 
sight of new faces ; and this was to be the face of one whom 

204 


My Lady Ludlow 

I had thought about so much and so long — Oh ! I think 1 
might be excused. 

Of course they drank tea in the great hall, with the four 
young gentlewomen, who, with myself, formed the small 
bevy now under her ladyship’s charge. Of those who were 
at Hanbury when first I came, none remained ; all were 
married, or gone once more to live at some home which 
could be called their own, whether the ostensible head were 
father or brother. I myself was not without some hopes of 
a similar kind. My brother Harry was now a curate in 
Westmoreland, and wanted me to go and live with him, 
as eventually I did for a time. But that is neither here 
nor there at present. What I am talking about is Miss 
Bessy. 

After a reasonable time had elapsed, occupied as I well 
knew by the meal in the great hall — the measured, yet 
agreeable conversation afterwards — and a certain promenade 
around the hall, and through the drawing-rooms, with pauses 
before different pictures, the history or subject of each of 
which was invariably told by my lady to every new visitor — 
a sort of giving them the freedom of the old family seat, by 
describing the kind and nature of the great progenitors who 
had lived there before the narrator — I heard the steps 
approaching my lady’s room, where I lay. I think I was in 
such a state of nervous expectation that, if I could have 
moved easily, I should have got up and run away. And yet 
I need not have been, for Miss Galindo was not in the least 
altered (her nose a little redder to be sure, but then that 
might only have had a temporary cause in the private crying 
I know she would have had before coming to see her dear 
Lady Ludlow once again). But I could almost have pushed 
Miss Galindo away, as she intercepted me in my view of the 
mysterious Miss Bessy. 

Miss Bessy was, as I knew, only about eighteen, but she 
looked older. Dark hair, dark eyes, a tall, firm figure, a 
good, sensible face, with a serene expression, not in the 
least disturbed by what I had been thinking must be such 

205 


My Lady Ludlow 

awful circumstances as a first introduction to my lady, who 
had so disapproved of her very existence : those are the 
clearest impressions I remember of my first interview with 
Miss Bessy. She seemed to observe us all, in her quiet 
manner, quite as much as I did her; but she spoke very 
little ; occupied herself, indeed, as my lady had planned, with 
looking over the great books of engravings. I think I must 
have (foolishly) intended to make her feel at her ease, by 
my patronage ; but she was seated far away from my sofa, 
in order to command the light, and really seemed so uncon- 
cerned at her unwonted circumstances, that she did not 
need my countenance or kindness. One thing I did like — 
her watchful look at Miss Galindo from time to time : it 
showed that her thoughts and sympathy were ever at Miss 
Galindo’s service, as indeed they well might be. When 
Miss Bessy spoke, her voice was full and clear, and what 
she said, to the purpose, though there was a slight pro- 
vincial accent in her way of speaking. After a while, my 
lady set us two to play at chess, a game which I had lately 
learnt at Mr. Gray’s suggestion. Still we did not talk much 
together, though we were becoming attracted towards each 
other, I fancy. 

“You will play well,”' said she. “ You have only learnt 
about six months, have you ? And yet you can nearly beat 
me, who have been at it as many years.” 

“ I began to learn last November. I remember Mr. 
Gray’s bringing me ‘ Philidor on Chess,’ one very foggy, 
dismal day.” 

What made her look up so suddenly, with bright inquiry 
in her eyes ? What made her silent for a moment, as if in 
thought, and then go on with something, I know not what, 
in quite an altered tone ? 

My lady and Miss Galindo went on talking, while I sat 
thinking. I heard Captain James’s name mentioned pretty 
frequently ; and at last my lady put down her work, and 
said, almost with tears in her eyes — 

“ I could not — I cannot believe it. He must be aware 
206 


My Lady Ludlow 

she is a schismatic ; a baker’s daughter ; and he is a gentle- 
man by virtue and feeling, as well as by his profession, 
though his manners may be at times a little rough. My 
dear Miss Galindo, what will this world come to ? ” 

Miss Galindo might possibly be aware of her own share 
in bringing the world to the pass which now dismayed my 
lady — for, of course, though all was now over and forgiven, 
yet Miss Bessy’s being received into a respectable maiden 
lady’s house, was one of the portents as to the world’s 
future which alarmed her ladyship ; and Miss Galindo knew 
this — but, at any rate, she had too lately been forgiven 
herself not to plead for mercy for the next offender against 
my lady’s delicate sense of fitness and propriety — so she 
replied — 

“ Indeed, my lady, I have long left off trying to conjecture 
what makes Jack fancy Gill, or Gill Jack. It’s best to sit 
down quiet under the belief that marriages are made for us, 
somewhere out of this world, and out of the range of this 
world’s reason and laws. I’m not so sure that I should 
settle it down that they were made in heaven ; t’other place 
seems to me as likely a workshop ; but at any rate, I’ve given 
up troubling my head as to why they take place. Captain 
James is a gentleman : I make no doubt of that ever since I 
saw him stop to pick up old Goody Blake (when she tumbled 
down on the slide last winter) and then swear at a little lad 
who was laughing at her, and cuff him till he tumbled down 
crying ; but we must have bread somehow, and though I like 
it better baked at home in a good sweet brick oven, yet, as 
'some folks never can get it to rise, I don’t see why a man 
may not be a baker. You see, my lady, I look upon baking 
as a simple trade, and as such lawful. There is no machine 
comes in to take away a man’s or woman’s power of earning 
their living, like the spinning- jenny (the old busybody that 
she is), to knock up all our good old women’s livelihood, and 
send them to their graves before their time. There’s an 
invention of the enemy, if you will ? ” 

“ That’s very true ! ” said my lady, shaking her head. 

207 


My Lady Ludlow 

“ But baking bread is wholesome, straightforward elbow- 
work. They have not got to inventing any contrivance for 
that yet, thank Heaven ! It does not seem to me natural, 
nor according to Scripture, that iron and steel (whose brows 
can’t sweat) should be made to do man’s work. And so I 
say, all those trades where iron and steel do the work or- 
dained to man at the Fall, are unlawful, and I never stand 
up for them. But, say this baker Brooke did knead his bread, 
and make it rise, and then that people, who had, perhaps, 
no good ovens, came to him, and bought his good light bread, 
and in this manner he turned an honest penny and got rich : 
why, all I say, my lady, is this — I dare say he would have 
been born a Hanbury, or a lord if he could ; and if he was 
not, it is no fault of his, that I can see, that he made good 
bread (being a baker by trade), and got money, and bought 
his land. It was his misfortune, not his fault, that he was 
not a person of quality by birth.” 

“ That’s very true,” said my lady, after a moment’s pause 
for consideration. “ But, although he was a baker, he might 
have been a Churchman. Even your eloquence, Miss Galindo, 
shan’t convince me that that is not his own fault.” 

“ I don’t see even that, begging your pardon, my lady,” 
said Miss Galindo, emboldened by the first success of her 
eloquence. “ When a Baptist is a baby, if I understand 
their creed aright, he is not baptized ; and, consequently, he 
can have no godfathers and godmothers to do anything for 
him in his baptism ; you agree to that, my lady? ” 

My lady would rather have known what her acquiescence 
would lead to, before acknowledging that she could not 
dissent from this first proposition ; still she gave her tacit 
agreement by bowing her head. 

“ And, you know, our godfathers and godmothers are ex- 
pected to promise and vow three things in our name, when 
we are little babies, and can do nothing but squall for our- 
selves. It is a great privilege, but don’t let us be hard upon 
those who have not had the chance of godfathers and’ god- 
mothers, Some people, we know, are born with silver 

208 


My Lady Ludlow 

spoons — that’s to say, a godfather to give one things, and 
teach us our catechism, and see that we’re confirmed into 
good church-going Christians — and others with wooden 
ladles in their mouths. These poor last folks must just be 
content to be godfatherless orphans, and Dissenters, all their 
lives ; and if they are tradespeople into the bargain, so much 
the worse for them ; but let us be humble Christians, my 
dear lady, and not hold our heads too high because we were 
born orthodox quality.” 

“ You go on too fast, Miss Galindo ! I can’t follow you. 
Besides, I do believe dissent to be an invention of the Devil’s. 
Why can’t they believe as we do ? It’s very wrong. Besides, 
it’s schism and heresy, and, you know, the Bible says that’s 
as bad as witchcraft.” 

My lady was not convinced, as I could see. After Miss 
Galindo had gone, she sent Mrs. Medlicott for certain books 
out of the great old library upstairs, and had them made up 
into a parcel under her own eye. 

“ If Captain James comes to-morrow, I will speak to him 
about these Brookes. I have not hitherto liked to speak, to 
him, because I did not wish to hurt him, by supposing there 
could be any truth in the reports about his intimacy with 
them. But now I will try and do my duty by him and them. 
Surely, this great body of divinity will bring them back to the 
true Church.” 

I could not tell, for though my lady read me over the 
titles, I was not any the wiser as to their contents. Besides, 
I was much more anxious to consult my lady as to my own 
change of place. I showed her the letter I had that day 
received from Harry ; and we once more talked over the 
expediency of my going to live with him, and trying what 
entire change of air would do to re-establish my failing health. 
I could say anything to my lady, she was so sure to under- 
stand me rightly. For one thing, she never thought of 
herself, so I had no fear of hurting her by stating the truth. 
I told her how happy my years had been while passed under 
her roof ; but that now I had begun to wonder whether I 

209 p 


My Lady Ludlow 

had not duties elsewhere, in making a home for Harry — and 
whether the fulfilment of these duties, quiet ones they must 
needs be in the case of such a cripple as myself, would not 
prevent my sinking into the querulous habit of thinking and 
talking, into which I found myself occasionally falling. Add 
to which, there was the prospect of benefit from the more 
bracing air of the north. 

It was then settled that my departure from Hanbury, my 
happy home for so long, was to take place before many weeks 
had passed. And as, when one period of life is about to be 
shut up for ever, we are sure to look back upon it with fond 
regret, so I, happy enough in my future prospects, could not 
avoid recurring to all the days of my life in the Hall, from 
the time when I came to it, a shy awkward girl scarcely past 
childhood, to now, when a grown woman — past childhood — 
almost, from the very character of my illness, past youth— 
I was looking forward to leaving my lady’s house (as a resi- 
dence) for ever. As it has turned out, I never saw her or it 
again. Like a piece of sea-wreck, I have drifted away from 
those days : quiet, happy, eventless days — very happy to 
remember ! 

I thought of good, jovial Mr. Mountford, and his regrets 
that he might not keep a pack — “ a very small pack ” — of 
harriers, and his merry ways, and his love of good eating ; of 
the first coming of Mr. Gray, and my lady’s attempt to 
quench his sermons, when they tended to enforce any duty 
connected with education. And now we had an absolute 
schoolhouse in the village ; and, since Miss Bessy’s drinking 
tea at the Hall, my lady had been twice inside it, to give 
directions about some fine yarn she was having spun for 
table-napery. And her ladyship had so outgrown her old 
custom of dispensing with sermon or discourse, that even 
during the temporary preaching of Mr. Crosse, she had never 
had recourse to it ; though I believe she would have had all 
the congregation on her side if she had. 

And Mr. Horner was dead, and Captain James reigned in 
his stead. Good, steady, severe, silent Mr. Horner, with his 

210 


My Lady Ludlow 

clock-like regularity, and his snuff-coloured clothes, and silver 
buckles ! I have often wondered which one misses most 
when they are dead and gone — the bright creatures full of 
life, who are hither and thither and everywhere, so that no 
one can reckon upon their coming and going, with whom 
stillness and the long quiet of the grave, seems utterly irre- 
concilable, so full are they of vivid motion and passion — or 
the slow, serious people, whose movements, nay, whose 
very words, seem to go by clockwork; who never appear 
much to affect the course of our life while they are with us, 
but whose methodical ways show themselves, when they are 
gone, to have been intertwined with our very roots of daily 
existence. I think I miss these last the most, although I 
may have loved the former best. Captain James never was 
to me what Mr. Horner was, though the latter had hardly 
exchanged a dozen words with me at the day of his death. 
Then Miss Galindo ! I remembered the time as if it had 
been only yesterday, when she was but a name — and a very 
odd one — to me ; - then she was a queer, abrupt, disagreeable, 
busy old maid. Now I loved her dearly, and I found out 
that I was almost jealous of Miss Bessy. 

Mr. Gray I never thought of with love ; the feeling was 
almost reverence with which I looked upon him. I have 
not wished to speak much of myself, or else I could have 
told you how much he had been to me during these long, 
weary years of illness. But he was almost as much to 
every one, rich and poor, from my lady down to Miss 
Galindo’s Sally. 

The village, too, had a different look about it. I am sure 
I could not tell you what caused the change ; but there were 
no more lounging young men to form a group at the cross- 
road, at a time of day when young men ought to be at work. 

I don’t say this was all Mr. Gray’s doing, for there really 
was so much to do in the fields that there was but little time 
for lounging now-a-days. And the children were hushed up 
in school, and better behaved out of it, too, than in the days 
when I used to be able to go my lady’s errands in the 


2 1 1 


My Lady Ludlow 

village. I went so little about now that I am sure I can’t 
tell who Miss Galindo found to scold ; and yet she looked so 
well and so happy that I think she must have had her 
accustomed portion of that wholesome exercise. 

Before I left Hanbury, the rumour that Captain James 
was going to marry Miss Brooke, Baker Brooke’s eldest 
daughter, who had only a sister to share his property with 
her, was confirmed. He himself announced it to my lady ; 
nay more, with a courage, gained, I suppose, in his former 
profession, where, as I have heard, he had led his ship into 
many a post of danger, he asked her ladyship, the Countess 
Ludlow, if he might bring his bride-elect (the Baptist baker’s 
daughter) and present her to my lady. 

I am glad I was not present when he made this request ; 
I should have felt so much ashamed for him, and I could 
not have helped being anxious till I heard my lady’s answer, 
if I had been there. Of course she acceded; but I can 
fancy the grave surprise of her look. I wonder if Captain 
James noticed it. 

I hardly dared ask my lady, after the interview had taken 
place, what she thought of the bride-elect ; but I hinted my 
curiosity, and she told me, that if the young person had 
applied to Mrs. Medlicott for the situation of cook, and Mrs. 
Medlicott had engaged her, she thought that it would have 
been a very suitable arrangement. I understood from this 
how little she thought a marriage with Captain James, R.N., 
suitable. 

About a year after I left Hanbury, I received a letter 
from Miss Galindo ; I think I can find it. — Yes, this is it. 

“ Hanbury, May 4, 1811. 

“ Dear Margaret, — You ask for news of us all. Don’t 
you know there is no news in Hanbury ? Did you ever 
hear of an event here ? Now, if you have answered * Yes ’ 
in your own mind to these questions, you have fallen into my 
trap, and never were more mistaken in your life. Hanbury 
is full of news ; and we have more events on our hands than 


212 


My Lady Ludlow 

we know what to do with. I will take them in the order of 
the newspapers — births, deaths, and marriages. In the 
matter of births, Jenny Lucas has had twins not a week 
ago. Sadly too much of a good thing, you’ll say. Very 
true : but then they died ; so their birth did not much 
signify. My cat has kittened, too ; she has had three kittens, 
which again you may observe is too much of a good thing ; 
and so it would be, if it were not for the next item of in- 
telligence I shall lay before you. Captain and Mrs. James 
have taken the old house next Pearson’s ; and the house is 
overrun with mice, which is just as fortunate for me as the 
King of Egypt’s rat-ridden kingdom was to Dick Whittington. 
For my cat’s kittening decided me to go and call on the 
bride, in hopes she wanted a cat ; which she did like a 
sensible woman, as I do believe she is, in spite of Baptism, 
Bakers, Bread, and Birmingham, and something worse than 
all, which you shall hear about, if you’ll only be patient. As 
I had got my best bonnet on, the one I bought when poor 
Lord Ludlow was last at Hanbury in ’99 — I thought it a 
great condescension in myself (always remembering the date 
of the Galindo baronetcy) to go and call on the bride; 
though I don’t think so much of myself in my every-day 
clothes, as you know. But who should I find there but my 
Lady Ludlow ! She looks as frail and delicate as ever, but 
is, I think, in better heart ever since that old city merchant 
of a Hanbury took it into his head that he was a cadet of 
the Hanburys of Hanbury, and left her that handsome 
legacy. I’ll warrant you that the mortgage was paid off 
pretty fast ; and Mr. Horner’s money — or my lady’s money, 
or Harry Gregson’s money, call it which you will — is invested 
in his name, all right and tight ; and they do talk of his 
being captain of his school, or Grecian, or something, and 
going to college after all ! Harry Gregson the poacher’s 
son ! Well ! to be sure, we are living in strange times ! 

“ But I have not done with the marriages yet. Captain 
James’s is all very well, but no one cares for it now, we are 
so full of Mr. Gray’s. Yes, indeed, Mr. Gray is going to be 

213 


My Lady Ludlow 

married, and to nobody else but my little Bessy ! I tell her 
she will have to nurse him half the days of her life, he is 
such a frail little body. But she says she does not care for 
that ; so that his body holds his soul, it is enough for her. 
She has a good spirit and a brave heart, has my Bessy ! It 
is a great advantage that she won’t have to mark her clothes 
over again ; for when she had knitted herself her last set of 
stockings, I told her to put G for Galindo, if she did not 
choose to put it for Gibson, for she should be my child if 
she was no one else’s. And now you see it stands for Gray. 
So there are two marriages, and what more would you have ? 
And she promises to take another of my kittens. 

“ Now, as to deaths, old Farmer Hale is dead — poor old 
man, I should think his wife thought it a good riddance, for 
he beat her every day that he was drunk, and he was never 
sober, in spite of Mr. Gray. I don’t think (as I tell him) 
that Mr. Gray would ever have found courage to speak to 
Bessy as long as Farmer Hale lived, he took the old gentle- 
man’s sins so much to heart, and seemed to think it was all 
his fault for not being able to make a sinner into a saint. 
The parish bull is dead too. I never was so glad in my life. 
But they say we are to have a new one in his place. In the 
meantime I cross the common in peace, which is very con- 
venient just now, when I have so often to go to Mr. Gray’s 
to see about furnishing. 

“Now you think I have told you all the Hanbury news,’ 
don’t you ? Not so. The very greatest thing of all is to 
come. I won’t tantalise you, but just out with it, for you 
would never guess it. My Lady Ludlow has given a party, 
just like any plebeian amongst us. We had tea and toast in 
the blue drawing-room, old John Footman waiting with Tom 
Diggles, the lad that used to frighten away crows in Farmer 
Hale’s fields, following in my lady’s livery, hair powdered 
and everything. Mrs. Medlicott made tea in my lady’s own 
room. My lady looked like a splendid fairy queen of mature 
age, in black velvet, and the old lace, which I have never seen 
her wear before since my lord’s death. But the company ? 

214 


My Lady Ludlow 

you’ll say. Why, we had the parson of Clover, and the 
parson of Headleigh, and the parson of Merribank, and 
the three parsonesses ; and Farmer Donkin, and two Miss 
Donkins ; and Mr. Gray (of course), and myself and Bessy ; 
and Captain and Mrs. James; yes, and Mr. and Mrs. 
Brooke ; think of that ! I am not sure the parsons liked it ; 
but he was there. For he has been helping Captain James 
to get my lady’s land into order; and then his daughter 
married the agent ; and Mr. Gray (who ought to know) says 
that, after all, Baptists are not such bad people ; and he was 
right against them at one time as you may remember. Mrs. 
Brooke is a rough diamond, to be sure. People have said 
that of me, I know. But, being a Galindo, I learnt manners 
in my youth and can take them up when I choose. But Mrs. 
Brooke never learnt manners, I’ll be bound. When John 
Footman handed her the tray with the tea-cups, she looked 
up at him as if she were sorely puzzled by that way of 
going on. I was sitting next to her, so I pretended not to 
see her perplexity, and put her cream and sugar in for her, 
and was all ready to pop it into her hands, — when who should 
come up, but that impudent lad Tom Diggles (I call him lad, 
for all his hair is powdered, for you know that it is not 
natural grey hair), with his tray full of cakes and what not, 
all as good as Mrs. Medlicott could make them. By this 
time, I should tell you all the parsonesses were looking at 
Mrs. Brooke, for she had shown her want of breeding 
before ; and the parsonesses, who were just a step above her 
in manners, were very much inclined to smile at her doings 
and sayings. Well ! what does she do but pull out a 
clean Bandana pocket-handkerchief, all red and yellow silk ; 
spread it over her best silk gown — it was, like enough, a 
new one, for I had it from Sally, who had it from her cousin 
Molly, who is dairy-woman ‘ at the Brookes,’ that the 
Brookes were mighty set-up with an invitation to drink tea 
at the Hall. There we were, Tom Diggles even on the grin 
(I wonder how long it is since he was own brother to a 
scarecrow, only not so decently dressed) and Mrs. Parsoness 

215 


My Lady Ludlow 

of Headleigh — I forget her name, and it’s no matter, for she’s 
an ill-bred creature, I hope Bessy will behave herself better 
— was right-down bursting with laughter, and as near a hee- 
haw as ever a donkey was ; when what does my lady do ? 
Ay ! there’s my own dear Lady Ludlow, God bless her ! 
She takes out her own pocket-handkerchief, all snowy 
cambric, and lays it softly down on her velvet lap, for all 
the world as if she did it every day of her life, just like Mrs. 
Brooke, the baker’s wife ; and when the one got up to shake 
the crumbs into the fireplace, the other did just the same. 
But with such a grace ! and such a look at us all ! Tom 
Diggles went red all over ; and Mrs. Parsoness of Head- 
leigh scarce spoke for the rest of the evening ; and the tears 
came into my old silly eyes ; and Mr. Gray, who was before 
silent and awkward in a way which I tell Bessy she must 
cure him of, was made so happy by this pretty action of my 
lady’s that he talked away all the rest of the evening, and 
was the life of the company. 

“ Oh, Margaret Dawson ! I sometimes wonder if you’re 
the better off for leaving us. To be sure you’re with your 
brother, and blood is blood. But when I look at my lady 
and Mr. Gray, for all they’re so different, I would not change 
places with any in England.” 

Alas ! alas ! I never saw my dear lady again. She died 
in eighteen hundred and fourteen, and Mr. Gray did not long 
survive her. As I dare say you know, the Beverend Henry 
Gregson is now vicar of Hanbury, and his wife is the 
daughter of Mr. Gray and Miss Bessy. 

As any one may guess, it had taken Mrs. Dawson several 
Monday evenings to narrate all this history of the days of 
her youth. Miss Duncan thought it would be a good exercise 
for me, both in memory and composition, to write out on 
Tuesday mornings all that I had heard the night before ; and 
thus it came to pass that I have the manuscript of “ My 
Lady Ludlow ” now lying by me. 


216 


My Lady Ludlow 

Mr. Dawson had often come in and out of the room 
during the time that his sister had been telling us about 
Lady Ludlow. He would stop, and listen a little, and smile 
or sigh as the case might be. ' The Monday after the dear 
old lady had wound up her tale (if tale it could be called), 
we felt rather at a loss what to talk about, we had grown so 
accustomed to listen to Mrs. Dawson. I remember I was 
saying, “ Oh, dear ! I wish some one would tell us another 
story ! ” when her brother said, as if in answer to my speech, 
that he had drawn up a paper all ready for the Philosophical 
Society, and that perhaps we might care to hear it before it 
was sent off : it was in a great measure compiled from a 
French book, published by one of the Academies, and rather 
dry in itself ; but Mr. Dawson’s attention had been directed 
to it, after a tour he had made in England during the 
past year, in which he had noticed small walled-up doors in 
unusual paxts of some old parish churches, and had been 
told that they had formerly been appropriated to the use of 
some half-heathen race, who, before the days of gipsies, held 
the same outcast pariah position in most of the countries of 
western Europe. Mr. Dawson had been recommended to 
the French book which he named, as containing the fullest 
and most authentic account of this mysterious race, the 
Oagots. I did not think I should like hearing this paper as 
much as a story ; but, of course, as he meant it kindly, we 
were bound to submit, and I found it, on the whole, more 
interesting than I anticipated. 


217 


AN ACCURSED RACE 


We have our prejudices in England. Or, if that assertion 
offends any of my readers, I will modify it : we have had 
our prejudices in England. We have tortured Jews; we 
have burnt Catholics and Protestants, to say nothing of a 
few witches and wizards. We have satirised Puritans, and 
we have dressed up Guys. But, after all, I do not think we 
have been so bad as our Continental friends. To be sure, 
our insular position has kept us free, to a certain degree, 
from the inroads of alien races : who, driven from one land 
of refuge, steal into another equally unwilling to receive 
them, and where, for long centuries, their presence is . barely 
endured, and no pains is taken to conceal the repugnance 
which the natives of “ pure blood ” experience towards them. 

There yet remains a remnant of the miserable people 
called Cagots in the valleys of the Pyrenees ; in the Landes 
near Bordeaux ; and, stretching up on the west side of 
France, their numbers become larger in Lower Brittany. 
Even now, the origin of these families is a word of shame to 
them among their neighbours ; although they are protected 
by the law, which confirmed them in the equal rights of 
citizens about the end of the last century. Before then they 
had lived, for hundreds of years, isolated from all those who 
boasted of pure blood, and they had been, all this time, 
oppressed by cruel local edicts. They were truly what they 
were popularly called, The Accursed Race. 

All distinct traces of their origin are lost. Even at the 
close of that period which we call the Middle Ages, this was 
a problem which no one could solve; and as the traces, 

218 


An Accursed Race 

which even then were faint and uncertain, have vanished 
away one by one, it is a complete mystery at the present 
day. Why they were accursed in the first instance, why 
isolated from their kind, no one knows. From the earliest 
accounts of their state that are yet remaining to us, it seems 
that the names which they gave each other were ignored by 
the population they lived amongst, who spoke of them as 
Chrestiaa, or Cagots, just as we speak of animals by their 
generic names. Their houses or huts were always placed 
at some distance out of the villages of the country-folk, who 
unwillingly called in the services of the Cagots as carpenters, 
or tilers, or slaters — trades which seemed appropriated by 
this unfortunate race, who were forbidden to occupy land, 
or to bear arms, the usual occupations of those times. They 
had some small right of pasturage on the common lands, 
and in the forests ; but the number of their cattle and live- 
stock was strictly limited by the earliest laws relating to the 
Cagots. They were forbidden by one act to have more than 
twenty sheep, a pig, a ram, and six geese. The pig was to 
be fattened and killed for winter food ; the fleece of the sheep 
was to clothe them ; but if the said sheep had lambs, they 
were forbidden to eat them. Their only privilege arising 
from this increase was, that they might choose out the 
strongest and finest in preference to keeping the old sheep. 
At Martinmas the authorities of the commune came round, 
and counted over the stock of each Cagot. If he had more 
than his appointed number, they were forfeited ; half went 
to the commune, and half to the bailli, or chief magistrate 
of the commune. The poor beasts were limited as to the 
amount of common land which they might stray over in 
search of grass. While the cattle of the inhabitants of the 
commune might wander hither and thither in search of the 
sweetest herbage, the deepest shade, or the coolest pool in 
which to stand on the hot days, and lazily switch their 
dappled sides, the Cagot sheep and pig had to learn imaginary 
bounds, beyond which if they strayed, any one might snap 
them up, and kill them, reserving a part of the flesh for his 

2 19 


An Accursed Race 

own use, but graciously restoring the inferior parts to their 
original owner. Any damage done by the sheep was, how- 
ever, fairly appraised, and the Cagot paid no more for it than 
any other man would have done. 

Did a Cagot leave his poor cabin, and venture into the 
towns, even to render services required of him in the way of 
his trade, he was bidden, by all the municipal laws, to stand 
by and remember his rude old state. In all the towns and 
villages in the large districts extending on both sides of the 
Pyrenees — in all that part of Spain — they were forbidden to 
buy or sell anything eatable, to walk in the middle (esteemed 
the better) part of the streets, to come within the gates 
before sunrise, or to be found after sunset within the walls 
of the town. But still, as the Cagots were good-looking 
men, and (although they bore certain natural marks of their 
caste, of which I shall speak by-and-by) were not easily 
distinguished by casual passers-by from other men, they 
were compelled to wear some distinctive peculiarity which 
should arrest the eye ; and, in the greater number of towns, 
it was decreed that the outward sign of a Cagot should be a 
piece of red cloth sewed conspicuously on the front of his 
dress. In other towns, the mark of Cagoterie was the foot 
of a duck or a goose hung over their left shoulder, so as to 
be seen by any one meeting them. After a time, the more 
convenient badge of a piece of yellow cloth cut out in the 
shape of a duck’s foot, was adopted. If any Cagot was 

found in any town or village without his badge, he had to 

pay a fine of five sous, and to lose his dress. He was 

expected to shrink away from any passer-by, for fear that 

their clothes should touch each other ; or else to stand still 
in some corner or by-place. If the Cagots were thirsty 
during the days which they passed in those towns where 
their presence was barely suffered, they had no means of 
quenching their thirst, for they were forbidden to enter into 
the little cabarets or taverns. Even the water gushing out 
of the common fountain was prohibited to them. Ear away, 
in their own squalid village, there was the Cagot fountain, 

220 


An Accursed Race 

and they were not allowed to drink of any other water. A 
Cagot woman, having to make purchases in the town, was 
liable to be flogged out of it if she went to buy anything 
except on a Monday — a day on which all other people who 
could, kept their houses for fear of coming in contact with 
the accursed race. 

In the Pays Basque, the prejudices — and for some time 
the laws — ran stronger against them than any which I have 
hitherto mentioned. The Basque Cagot was not allowed to 
possess sheep. He might keep a pig for provision, but his 
pig had no right of pasturage. He might cut and carry 
grass for the ass, which was the only other animal he was 
permitted to own ; and this ass was permitted, because its 
existence was rather an advantage to the oppressor, who 
constantly availed himself of the Cagot’s mechanical skill, 
and was glad to have him and his tools easily conveyed from 
one place to another. 

The race was repulsed by the State. Under the small 
local governments they could hold no post whatsoever. And 
they were barely tolerated by the Church, although they 
were good Catholics, and zealous frequenters of the mass. 
They might only enter the churches by a small door set 
apart for them, through which no one of the pure race ever 
passed. This door was low, so as to compel them to make 
an obeisance. It was occasionally surrounded by sculpture, 
which invariably represented an oak-branch with a dove 
above it. When they were once in, they might not go to 
the holy water used by others. They had a benitier of their 
own ; nor were they allowed to share in the consecrated 
bread when that was handed round to the believers of the 
pure race. The Cagots stood afar off, near the door. There 
were certain boundaries — imaginary lines — in the nave and 
in the aisles which they might not pass. In one or two of 
the more tolerant of the Pyrenean villages, the blessed bread 
was offered to the Cagots, the priest standing on one side of 
the boundary, and giving the pieces of bread on a long 
wooden fork to each person successively. 

221 


An Accursed Race 

When the Cagot died, he was interred apart, in a plot of 
burying-ground on the north side of the cemetery. Under 
such laws and prescriptions as I have described, it is no 
wonder that he was generally too poor to have much pro- 
perty for his children to inherit ; but certain descriptions of 
it were forfeited to the commune. The only possession 
which all who were not of his own race refused to touch, 
was his furniture. That was tainted, infectious, unclean — 
fit for none but Cagots. 

When such were, for at least three centuries, the preva- 
lent usages and opinions with regard to this oppressed race, 
it is not surprising that we read of occasional outbursts of 
ferocious violence on their part. In the Basses-Pyrenees, 
for instance, it is only about a hundred years since that the 
Cagots of Behouilhes rose up against the inhabitants of the 
neighbouring town of Lourdes, and got the better of them, 
by their magical powers, as it is said. The people of Lourdes 
were conquered and slain, and their ghastly, bloody heads 
served the triumphant Cagots for balls to play at ninepins 
with ! The local parliaments had begun, by this time, to 
perceive how oppressive was the ban of public opinion under 
which the Cagots lay, and were not inclined to enforce too 
severe a punishment. Accordingly, the decree of the parlia- 
ment of Toulouse condemned only the leading Cagots con- 
cerned in this affray to be put to death ; but henceforward 
and for ever no Cagot was to be permitted to enter the town 
of Lourdes by any gate but that called Capdet-pourtet ; they 
were only to be allowed to walk under the rain -gutters, and 
neither to sit, eat, nor drink in the town. If they failed in 
observing any of these rules, the parliament decreed, in the 
spirit of Shylock, that the disobedient Cagots should have 
two strips of flesh, weighing never more than two ounces 
apiece, cut out from each side of their spines. 

In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, it 
was considered no more a crime to kill a Cagot than to 
destroy obnoxious vermin. A “ nest of Cagots ”, as the old 
accounts phrase it, had assembled in a deserted castle of 


222 


An Accursed Race 

Mauvezin, about the year sixteen hundred ; and, certainly, 
they made themselves not very agreeable neighbours, as they 
seemed to enjoy their reputation of magicians ; and, by some 
acoustic secrets which were known to them, all sorts of 
moanings and groanings were heard in the neighbouring 
forests, very much to the alarm of the good people of the 
pure race : who could not cut off a withered branch for fire- 
wood, but some unearthly sound seemed to fill the air, nor 
drink water which was not poisoned, because the Cagots 
would persist in filling their pitchers at the same running 
stream. Added to these grievances, the various pilferings 
perpetually going on in the neighbourhood made the inhabi- 
tants of the adjacent towns and hamlets believe that they 
had a very sufficient cause for wishing to murder all the 
Cagots in the Chateau de Mauvezin. But it was surrounded 
by a moat, and only accessible by a drawbridge ; besides 
which, the Cagots were fierce and vigilant. Some one, how- 
ever, proposed to get into their confidence ; and for this 
purpose he pretended to fall ill close to their path, so that on 
returning to their stronghold they perceived him, and took 
him in, restored him to health, and made a friend of him. One 
day, when they were all playing at ninepins in the woods, 
theff treacherous friend left the party on pretence of being 
thirsty, and went back into the castle, drawing up the bridge 
after he had passed over it, and so cutting off their means of 
escape into safety. Then, going up to the highest part of 
the castle, he blew a horn; and the pure race, who were 
lying in wait on the watch for some such signal, fell upon 
the Cagots at then games, and slew them all. For this 
murder I find no punishment decreed in the Parliament of 
Toulouse or elsewhere. 

As any intermarriage with the pure race was strictly 
forbidden, and as there were books kept in every commune 
in which the names and habitations of the reputed Cagots 
were written, these unfortunate people had no hope of ever 
becoming blended with the rest of the population. Did a 
Cagot marriage take place, the couple were serenaded with 

523 


An Accursed Race 

satirical songs. They also had minstrels, and many of their 
romances are still current in Britanny; but they did not 
attempt to make any reprisals of satire or abuse. Their 
disposition was amiable, and their intelligence great. Indeed, 
it required both these qualities, and their great love of 
mechanical labour, to make their lives tolerable. 

At last, they began to petition that they might receive 
some protection from the laws ; and, towards the end of the 
seventeenth century, the judicial power took their side. But 
they gained little by this. Law could not prevail against 
custom ; and, in the ten or twenty years just preceding the 
first French Revolution, the prejudice in France against the 
Cagots amounted to fierce and positive abhorrence. 

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Cagots of 
Navarre complained to the Pope that they were excluded 
from the fellowship of men, and accursed by the Church, 
because their ancestors had given help to a certain Count 
Raymond of Toulouse in his revolt against the Holy See. 
They entreated his Holiness not to visit upon them the sins 
of their fathers. The Pope issued a bull — on the thirteenth 
of May, fifteen hundred and fifteen — ordering them to be 
well treated and to be admitted to the same privileges as 
other men. He charged Don Juan de Santa Maria of 
Pampeluna to see to the execution of this bull. But Don 
Juan was slow to help, and the poor Spanish Cagots grew im- 
patient, and resolved to try the secular power. They accord- 
ingly applied to the Cortes of Navarre, and were opposed on 
a variety of grounds. First, it was stated that their ancestors 
had had “ nothing to do with Raymond Count of Toulouse, 
or with any such knightly personage ; that they were in fact 
descendants of Gehazi, servant of Elisha (second book of 
Kings, fifth chapter, twenty- seventh verse), who had been 
accursed by his master for his fraud upon Naaman, and 
doomed, he and his descendants, to be lepers for evermore. 
Name, Cagots or Gahets ; Gahets, Gehazites. What can be 
more clear ? And if that is not enough, and you tell us that 
the Cagots are not lepers now, we reply that there are two 

224 


An Accursed Race 

kinds of leprosy, one perceptible and the other imperceptible, 
even to the person suffering from it. Besides, it is the 
country talk that, where the Cagot treads, the grass withers, 
proving the unnatural heat of his body. Many credible and 
trustworthy witnesses will also tell you that, if a Cagot holds 
a freshly-gathered apple in his hand, it will shrivel and 
wither up in an hour’s time as much as if it had been kept 
for a whole winter in a dry room. They are born with tails ; 
although the parents are cunning enough to pinch them off 
immediately. Do you doubt this ? If it is not true, why do 
the children of the pure race delight in sewing on sheep’s 
tails to the dress of any Cagot who is so absorbed in his 
work as not to perceive them ? And their bodily smell is 
so horrible and detestable that it shows that they must be 
heretics of some vile and pernicious description ; for do we 
not read of the incense of good workers, and the fragrance 
of holiness ? ” 

Such were literally the arguments by which the Cagots 
were thrown back into a worse position than ever, as far as 
regarded their rights as citizens. The Pope insisted that 
they should receive all their ecclesiastical privileges. The 
Spanish priests said nothing ; but tacitly refused to allow 
the Cagots to mingle with the rest of the faithful, either 
dead or alive. The Accursed Pace obtained laws in their 
favour from the Emperor Charles the Fifth ; which, however, 
there was no one to carry into effect. As a sort of revenge 
for their want of submission, and for their impertinence in 
daring to complain, their tools were all taken away from 
them by the local authorities : an old man and all his family 
died of starvation, being no longer allowed to fish. 

They could not emigrate. Even to remove their poor 
mud habitations from one spot to another, excited anger 
and suspicion. To be sure, in sixteen hundred and ninety- 
five, the Spanish government ordered the alcaldes to search 
out all the Cagots, and to expel them before two months 
had expired, under pain of having fifty ducats to pay for 
every Cagot remaining in Spain at the expiration of that 

225 Q 


An Accursed Race 

time. The inhabitants of the villages rose up and flogged 
out any of the miserable race who might be in their 
neighbourhood ; but the French were on their guard against 
this enforced irruption, and refused to permit them to enter 
France. Numbers were hunted up into the inhospitable 
Pyrenees, and there died of starvation, or became a prey to 
wild beasts. They were obliged to wear both gloves and 
shoes when they were thus put to flight; otherwise, the 
stones and herbage they trod upon and the balustrades of 
the bridges that they handled in crossing, would, according 
to popular belief, have become poisonous. 

And all this time, there was nothing remarkable or dis- 
gusting in the outward appearance of this unfortunate 
people. There was nothing about them to countenance 
the idea of their being lepers — the most natural mode of 
accounting for the abhorrence in which they were held. 
They were repeatedly examined by learned doctors, whose 
experiments, although singular and rude, appear to have 
been made in a spirit of humanity. For instance, the 
surgeons of the king of Navarre, in sixteen hundred, bled 
twenty-two Cagots, in order to examine and analyse their 
blood. They were young and healthy people of both sexes : 
and the doctors seem to have expected that they would 
have been able to extract some new kind of salt from their 
blood which might account for the wonderful heat of their 
bodies. But their blood was just like that of other people. 
Some of these medical men have left us a description of 
the general appearance of this unfortunate race, at a time 
when they were more numerous and less intermixed than 
they are now. The families existing in the south and west 
of France, who are reputed to be of Cagot descent at this 
day, are, like their ancestors, tall, largely made, and powerful 
in frame ; fair and ruddy in complexion, with grey-blue eyes, 
in which some observers see a pensive heaviness of look. 
Their lips are thick, but well-formed. Some of the reports 
name their sad expression of countenance with surprise and 
suspicion — “ They are not gay, like other folk.” The wonder 

226 


An Accursed Race 

would be if they were. Dr. Guyon, the medical man of the 
last century who has left the clearest report on the health 
of the Cagots, speaks of the vigorous old age they attain to. 
In one family alone, he found a man of seventy-four years 
of age ; a woman as old, gathering cherries ; and another 
woman, aged eighty- three, was lying on the grass, having 
her hair combed by her great-grandchildren. Dr. Guyon 
and other surgeons examined into the subject of the horribly 
infectious smell which the Cagots were said to leave behind 
them and upon everything they touched; but they could 
perceive nothing unusual on this head. They also examined 
their ears, which, according to common belief (a belief existing 
to this day), were differently shaped from those of other 
people; being round and gristly, without the lobe of flesh 
into which the earring is inserted. They decided that most 
of the Cagots whom they examined had the ears of this 
round shape ; but they gravely added, that they saw no 
reason why this should exclude them from the good-will of 
men, and from the power of holding office in Church and 
State. They recorded the fact that the children of the 
towns ran baa-ing after any Cagot who had been compelled 
to come into the streets to make purchases, in allusion to 
this peculiarity of the shape of the ear, which bore some 
resemblance to the ears of the sheep as they are cut by the 
shepherds in this district. Dr. Guyon names the case of a 
beautiful Cagot girl, who sang most sweetly, and prayed to 
be allowed to sing canticles in the organ-loft. The organist, 
more musician than bigot, allowed her to come; but the 
indignant congregation, finding out whence proceeded that 
clear, fresh voice, rushed up to the organ-loft, and chased 
the girl out, bidding her “ remember her ears,” and not 
commit the sacrilege of singing praises to God along with 
the pure race. 

But this medical report of Dr. Guyon’s — bringing facts 
and arguments to confirm his opinion, that there was no 
physical reason why the Cagots should not be received on 
terms of social equality by the rest of the world — did no 

227 


An Accursed Race 

more for his clients than the legal decrees promulgated two 
centuries before had done. The French proved the truth of 
the saying in Hudibras — 

“ He that’s convinced against his will 
Is of the same opinion still.” 

And, indeed, the being convinced by Dr. Guyon that they 
ought to receive Cagots as fellow-creatures only made them 
more rabid in declaring that they would not. One or two 
little occurrences which are recorded, show that the bitter- 
ness of the repugnance to the Cagots was in full force at the 
time just preceding the first French revolution. There was 
a M. d’Abedos, the curate of Lourdes, and brother to the 
seigneur of the neighbouring castle, who was living in 
seventeen hundred and eighty; he was well-educated for 
the time, a travelled man, and sensible and moderate in all 
respects but that of his abhorrence of the Cagots : he would 
insult them from the very altar, calling out to them, as they 
stood afar off, “ Oh ! ye Cagots, damned for evermore ! ” 
One day, a half-blind Cagot stumbled and touched the censer 
borne before this Abbe de Lourdes. He was immediately 
turned out of the church, and forbidden ever to re-enter it. 
One does not know how to account for the fact, that the 
very brother of this bigoted abbe, the seigneur of the village, 
went and married a Cagot girl ; but so it was, and the abbe 
brought a legal process against him, and had his estates 
taken from him, solely on account of his marriage, which 
reduced him to the condition of a Cagot, against whom the 
old law was still in force. The descendants of this Seigneur 
de Lourdes are simple peasants at this very day, working on 
the lands which belonged to their grandfather. 

This prejudice against mixed marriages remained pre- 
valent until very lately. The tradition of the Cagot descent 
lingered among the people, long after the laws against the 
accursed race were abolished. A Breton girl, within the last 
few years, having two lovers, each of reputed Cagot descent, 
employed a notary to examine their pedigrees, and see which 

228 


An Accursed Race 

of the two had least Cagot in him ; and to that one she gave 
her hand. In Britanny the prejudice seems to have been 
more virulent than anywhere else. M. Emile Souvestre 
records proofs of the hatred borne to them in Britanny so 
recently as in eighteen hundred and thirty- five. Just lately 
a baker at Hennebon, having married a girl of Cagot descent, 
lost all his custom. The godfather and godmother of a 
Cagot child became Cagots themselves by the Breton laws, 
unless, indeed, the poor little baby died before attaining a 
certain number of days. They had to eat the butchers’ meat 
condemned as unhealthy ; but, for some unknown reason, 
they were considered to have a right to every cut loaf turned 
upside down, with its cut side towards the door, and might 
enter any house in which they saw a loaf in this position, 
and carry it away with them. About thirty years ago, there 
was the skeleton of a hand hanging up as an offering in a 
Breton church near Quimperle ; and the tradition was that 
it was the hand of a rich Cagot who had dared to take holy 
water out of the usual benitier , some time at the beginning 
of the reign of Louis the Sixteenth ; which an old soldier 
witnessing, he lay in wait ; and, the next time the offender 
approached the benitier he cut off his hand, and hung it up, 
dripping with blood, as an offering to the patron saint of the 
church. The poor Cagots in Britanny petitioned against their 
opprobrious name, and begged to be distinguished by the 
appellation of Malandrins. To English ears one is much 
the same as the other, as neither conveys any meaning ; 
but, to this day, the descendants of the Cagots do not like 
to have this name applied to them, preferring that of 
Malandrin. 

The French Cagots tried to destroy all the records of 
their pariah descent, in the commotions of seventeen hundred 
and eighty-nine ; but, if writings have disappeared, the tradi- 
tion yet remains, and points out such and such a family as 
Cagot, or Malandrin, or Oiselier, according to the old terms 
of abhorrence. 

There are various ways in which learned men have 
229 


An Accursed Race 

attempted to account for the universal repugnance in which 
this well-made powerful race are held. Some say that the 
antipathy to them took its rise in the days when leprosy was 
a dreadfully prevalent disease ; and that the Cagots are more 
liable than any other men to a kind of skin disease, not pre- 
cisely leprosy, but resembling it in some of its symptoms ; 
such as dead whiteness of complexion and swellings of the face 
and extremities. There was also some resemblance to the 
ancient Jewish custom in respect to lepers, in the habit of the 
people, who, on meeting a Cagot, called out, “ Cagote ? 
Cagote ? ” to which they were bound to reply, “ Perlute ! 
perlute ! ” Leprosy is not properly an infectious complaint, 
in spite of the horror in which the Cagot furniture, and the 
cloth woven by them, are held in some places ; the disorder 
is hereditary, and hence (say this body of wise men, who 
have troubled themselves to account for the origin of 
Cagoterie) the reasonableness and the justice of preventing 
any mixed marriages, by which this terrible tendency to 
leprous complaints might be spread far and wide. Another 
authority says that, though the Cagots are fine-looking men, 
hard-working, and good mechanics, yet they bear in their 
faces, and show in their actions, reasons for the detestation 
in which they are held : their glance, if you meet it, is the 
jettatura, or evil- eye, and they are spiteful and cruel, and 
deceitful above all other men. All these qualities they derive 
from their ancestor Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, together 
with their tendency to leprosy. 

Again, it is said that they are descended from the Arian 
Goths who were permitted to live in certain places in 
Guienne and Languedoc, after their defeat by King Clovis, 
on condition that they abjured their heresy, and kept them- 
selves separate from all other men for ever. The principal 
reason alleged in support of this supposition of their Gothic 
descent, is the specious one of derivation — Chiens Gots, Cans 
Gots, Cagots , equivalent to Dogs of Goths. 

Again, they were thought to be Saracens, coming from 
Syria. In confirmation of this idea was the belief that all 

230 


An Accursed Race 

Cagots were possessed by a horrible smell. The Lombards, 
also, were an unfragrant race, or so reputed among the 
Italians : witness Pope Stephen’s letter to Charlemagne, dis- 
suading him from marrying Bertha, daughter of Didier, King 
of Lombardy. The Lombards boasted of Eastern descent, 
and were noisome. The Cagots were noisome, and therefore 
must be of Eastern descent. What could be clearer ? In 
addition, there was the proof to be derived from the name 
Cagot, which those maintaining the opinion of their Saracen 
descent held to be Chiens, or Chasseurs des Gots, because the 
Saracens chased the Goths out of Spain. Moreover, the 
Saracens were originally Mahometans, and as such obliged 
to bathe seven times a day : whence the badge of the duck’s 
foot. A duck was a water-bird : Mahometans bathed in the 
water. Proof upon proof ! 

In Britanny the common idea was, they were of Jewish 
descent. Their unpleasant smell was again pressed into 
service. The Jews, it was well known, had this physical 
infirmity, which might be cured either by bathing in a certain 
fountain in Egypt — which was a long way from Britanny— or 
by anointing themselves with the blood of a Christian child. 
Blood gushed out of the body of every Cagot on Good Friday. 
No wonder, if they were of Jewish descent. It was the only 
way of accounting for so portentous a fact. Again, the 
Cagots were capital carpenters, which gave the Bretons every 
reason to believe that their ancestors were the very Jews 
who made the cross. When first the tide of emigration set 
from Britanny to America, the oppressed Cagots crowded to 
the ports, seeking to go to some new country, where their 
race might be unknown. Here was another proof of their 
descent from Abraham and his nomadic people; and the 
forty years’ wandering in the wilderness, and the Wandering 
Jew himself, were pressed into the service to prove that the 
Cagots derived their restlessness and love of change from 
their ancestors, the Jews. The Jews, also, practised arts- 
magic, and the Cagots sold bags of wind to the Breton 
sailors, enchanted maidens to love them — maidens who 

231 


An Accursed Race 

never would have cared for them, unless they had been 
previously enchanted — made hollow rocks and trees give out 
strange and unearthly noises, and sold the magical herb 
called bon-succes. It is true enough that, in all the early 
acts of the fourteenth century, the same laws apply to Jews 
as to Cagots, and the appellations seem used indiscrimi- 
nately ; but their fair complexions, their remarkable devotion 
to all the ceremonies of the Catholic Church, and many 
other circumstances, conspire to forbid our believing them to 
be of Hebrew descent. 

Another very plausible idea is that they are the descend- 
ants of unfortunate individuals afflicted with goitres, which 
is, even to this day, not an uncommon disorder in the gorges 
and valleys of the Pyrenees. Some have even derived the 
word goitre from Got, or Goth ; but their name, Chrestiaa, is 
not unlike Cretin, and the same symptoms of idiotism were 
not unusual among the Cagots ; although sometimes, if old 
tradition is to be credited, their malady of the brain took 
rather the form of violent delirium, which attacked them 
at new and full moons. Then the workmen laid down their 
tools, and rushed off from their labour to play mad pranks 
up and down the country. Perpetual motion was required to 
alleviate the agony of fury that seized upon the Cagots at 
such times. In this desire for rapid movement, the attack 
resembled the Neapolitan tarantella ; while in the mad deeds 
they performed during such attacks, they were not unlike 
the northern Berserker. In Bearn especially, those suffer- 
ing from this madness were dreaded by the pure race ; the 
Bearnais, going to cut their wooden clogs in the great 
forests that lay around the base of the Pyrenees, feared 
above all things to go too near the periods when the Cagou- 
telle seized on the oppressed and accursed people ; from 
whom it was then the oppressor’s turn to fly. A man was 
living within the memory of some, who had married a Cagot 
wife ; he used to beat her right soundly when he saw the 
first symptoms of the Cagoutelle, and, having reduced her to 
a wholesome state of exhaustion and insensibility, he locked 

232 


An Accursed Race 

her up until the moon had altered her shape in the heavens. 
If he had not taken such decided • steps, say the oldest in- 
habitants, there is no knowing what might have happened. 

From the thirteenth to the end of the eighteenth century, 
there are facts enough to prove the universal abhorrence in 
which this unfortunate race was held ; whether called Cagots, 
or Gahets in Pyrenean districts, Caqueaux in Britanny, or 
Vaqueros in Austria. The great French revolution brought 
some good out of its fermentation of the people : the more 
intelligent among them tried to overcome the prejudice 
against the Cagots. 

In seventeen hundred and eighteen, there was a famous 
cause tried at Biarritz relating to Cagot rights and privileges. 
There was a wealthy miller, Etienne Arnauld by name, of 
the race of Gotz, Quagotz, Bisigotz, Astragotz, or Gahetz, as 
his people are described in the legal document. He married 
an heiress, a Gotte (or Cagot) of Biarritz ; and the newly- 
married well-to-do couple saw no reason why they should 
stand near the door in the church, nor why he should not 
hold some civil office in the commune, of which he was the 
principal inhabitant. Accordingly, he petitioned the law 
that he and his wife might be allowed to sit in the gallery of 
the church, and that he might be relieved from his civil 
disabilities. This wealthy white miller, Etienne Arnauld, 
pursued his rights with some vigour against the Bailli of 
Labourd, the dignitary of the neighbourhood. Whereupon 
the inhabitants of Biarritz met in the open air, on the eighth 
of May, to the number of one hundred and fifty ; approved 
of the conduct of the Bailli in rejecting Arnauld; made a 
subscription, and gave all power to their lawyers to defend 
the cause of the pure race against Etienne Arnauld — “ that 
stranger,” who, having married a girl of Cagot blood, ought 
also to be expelled from the holy places. This lawsuit was 
carried through all the local courts, and ended by an appeal 
to the highest court in Paris ; where a decision was given 
against Basque superstitions ; and Etienne Arnauld was 
thenceforward entitled to enter the gallery of the church. 

233 


An Accursed Race 

Of course, the inhabitants of Biarritz were all the more 
ferocious for having been conquered ; and, four years later, 
a carpenter, named Miguel Legaret, suspected of Cagot 
descent, having placed himself in the church among other 
people, was dragged out by the abbe and two of the jurets 
of the parish. Legaret defended himself with a sharp knife 
at the time, and went to law afterwards ; the end of which 
was, that the abb6 and his two accomplices were condemned 
to a public confession of penitence, to be uttered while on 
their knees at the church door, just after high mass. They 
appealed to the parliament of Bordeaux against this decision, 
but met with no better success than the opponents of the 
miller Arnauld. Legaret was confirmed in his right of 
standing where he would in the parish church. That a 
living Cagot had equal rights with other men in the town of 
Biarritz seemed now ceded to them ; but a dead Cagot was 
a different thing. The inhabitants of pure blood struggled 
long and hard to be interred apart from the abhorred race. 
The Cagots were equally persistent in claiming to have a 
common burying-ground. Again the texts of the Old Testa- 
ment were referred to, and the pure blood quoted trium- 
phantly the precedent of Uzziah the leper (twenty-sixth 
chapter of the second book of Chronicles), who was buried 
in the field of the Sepulchres of the Kings, not in the sepul- 
chres themselves. The Cagots pleaded that they were 
healthy and able-bodied, with no taint of leprosy near them. 
They were met by the strong argument so difficult to be 
refuted, which I quoted before. Leprosy was of two kinds, 
perceptible and imperceptible. If the Cagots were suffering 
from the latter kind, who could tell whether they were free 
from it or not ? That decision must be left to the judgment 
of others. 

One sturdy Cagot family alone, Belone by name, kept up 
a lawsuit, claiming the privilege of common sepulture, for 
forty-two years ; while the cure of Biarritz had to pay one 
hundred livres for every Cagot not interred in the right place. 
The inhabitants indemnified the curate for all these fines. 

234 


An Accursed Race 

M. de Romagne, Bishop of Tarbes, who died in seven- 
teen hundred and sixty-eight, was the first to allow a Cagot 
to fill any office in the Church. To be sure, some were so 
spiritless as to reject office when it was offered to them, 
because, by so claiming their equality, they had to pay the 
same taxes as other men, instead of the Rancale or poll-tax 
levied on the Cagots ; the collector of which had also a right 
to claim a piece of bread of a certain size for his dog at 
every Cagot dwelling. 

Even in the present century, it has been necessary in 
some churches for the archdeacon of the district, followed by 
all his clergy, to pass out of the small door previously appro- 
priated to the Cagots, in order to mitigate the superstition 
which, even so lately, made the people refuse to mingle with 
them in the house of God. A Cagot once played the con- 
gregation at Larroque a trick suggested by what I have just 
named. He slily locked the great parish-door of the church, 
while the greater part of the inhabitants were assisting at 
mass inside ; put gravel into the lock itself, so as to prevent 
the use of any duplicate key — and had the pleasure of seeing 
the proud pure-blooded people file out with bended head, 
through the small low door used by the abhorred Cagots. 

We are naturally shocked at discovering, from facts such 
as these, the causeless rancour with which innocent and 
industrious people were so recently persecuted. The moral 
of the history of the accursed race may, perhaps, be best 
conveyed in the words of an epitaph on Mrs. Mary Hand, 
who lies buried in the churchyard of Stratford-on-Avon — 

“ What faults you saw in me, 

Pray strive to shun ; 

And look at home ; there’s 
Something to be done.” 

For some time past I had observed that Miss Duncan 
made a good deal of occupation for herself in writing, but 
that she did not like me to notice her employment. Of 
course this made me all the more curious ; and many were 

235 


An Accursed Race 

my silent conjectures — some of them so near the truth that 
I was not much surprised when, after Mr. Dawson had 
finished reading his paper to us, she hesitated, coughed, 
and abruptly introduced a little formal speech, to the effect 
that she had noted down an old Welsh story the particulars 
of which had often been told her in her youth, as she lived 
close to the place where the events occurred. Everybody 
pressed her to read the manuscript, which she now pro- 
duced from her reticule ; but, when on the point of begin- 
ning, her nervousness seemed to overcome her, and she 
made so many apologies for its being the first and only 
attempt she had ever made at that kind of composition, 
that I began to wonder if we should ever arrive at the 
story at all. At length, in a high-pitched, ill-assured voice, 
she read out the title— 

“ The Doom of the Griffiths.” 


236 


THE 

DOOM OF THE GRIFFITHS 


CHAPTEE I 

I have always been much interested by the traditions which 
are scattered up and down North Wales relating to Owen 
Glendower (Owain Glendwr is the national spelling of the 
name), and I fully enter into the feeling which makes the 
Welsh peasant still look upon him as the hero of his country. 
There was great joy among many of the inhabitants of the 
principality, when the subject of the Welsh prize poem at 
Oxford, some fifteen or sixteen years ago, was announced 
to be “ Owain Glendwr.” It was the most proudly national 
subject that had been given for years. 

Perhaps some may not be aware that this redoubted 
chieftain is, even in the present days of enlightenment, as 
famous among his illiterate countrymen for his magical 
powers as for his patriotism. He says himself — or Shake- 
speare says it for him, which is much the same thing — 

“ At my nativity 

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes 

Of burning cressets . . . 

... I can call spirits from the vasty deep.” 

And few among the lower orders in the principality would 
think of asking Hotspur’s irreverent question in reply. 

Among other traditions preserved relative to this part 
of the Welsh hero’s character, is the old family prophecy 
which gives title to this tale. When Sir David Gam, “as 
black a traitor as if he had been born in Bluith,” sought 
to murder Owen at Machynlleth, there was one with him 

237 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

whose name Glendwr little dreamed of having associated 
with his enemies. Ehys ap Gryfydd, his “ old familiar 
friend,” his relation, his more than brother, had consented 
unto his blood. Sir David Gam might be forgiven, but 
one whom he had loved, and who had betrayed him, could 
never be forgiven. Glendwr was too deeply read in the 
human heart to kill him. No, he let him live on, the 
loathing and scorn of his compatriots, and the victim of 
bitter remorse. The mark of Cain was upon him. 

But before he went forth — while he yet stood a prisoner, 
cowering beneath his conscience before Owain Glendwr — 
that chieftain passed a doom upon him and his race — 

“I doom thee to live, because I know thou wilt pray 
for death. Thou shalt live on beyond the natural term of 
the life of man, the scorn of all good men. The very 
children shall point to thee with hissing tongue, and say, 
‘ There goes one who w r ould have shed a brother’s blood ! ' 
For I loved thee more than a brother, O Ehys ap Gryfydd ! 
Thou shalt live on to see all of thy house, except the weak- 
ling in arms, perish by the sword. Thy race shall be 
accursed. Each generation shall see their lands melt away 
like snow ; yea, their wealth shall vanish, though they may 
labour night and day to heap up gold. And when nine 
generations have passed from the face of the earth, thy 
blood shall no longer flow in the veins of any human being. 
In those days the last male of thy race shall avenge me. 
The son shall slay the father.” 

Such was the traditionary account of Owain Glendwr’ s 
speech to his once-trusted friend. And it was declared that 
the doom had been fulfilled in all things ; that, live in as 
miserly a manner as they would, the Griffiths never were 
wealthy and prosperous — indeed, that their worldly stock 
diminished without any visible cause. 

But the lapse of many years had almost deadened the 
wonder-inspiring power of the whole curse. It was only 
brought forth from the hoards of Memory when some un- 
toward event happened to the Griffiths family ; and in the 

238 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

eighth generation the faith in the prophecy was nearly 
destroyed, by the marriage of the Griffiths of that day to 
a Miss Owen, who, unexpectedly, by the death of a brother, 
became an heiress — to no considerable amount, to be sure, 
but enough to make the prophecy appear reversed. The 
heiress and her husband removed from his small patrimonial 
estate in Merionethshire, to her heritage in Caernarvonshire, 
and for a time the prophecy lay dormant. 

If you go from Tremadoc to Criccaeth, you . pass by the 
parochial church of Ynysynhanarn, situated in a boggy 
valley running from the mountains, which shoulder up to 
the Rivals, down to Cardigan Bay. This tract of land has 
every appearance of having been redeemed at no distant 
period of time from the sea, and has all the desolate rank- 
ness often attendant upon such marshes. But the valley 
beyond, similar in character, had yet more of gloom at 
the time of which I write. In the higher part there were 
large plantations of firs, set too closely to attain any size, 
and remaining stunted in height and scrubby in appearance. 
Indeed, many of the smaller and more weakly had died, 
and the bark had fallen down on the brown soil neglected 
and unnoticed. These trees had a ghastly appearance, with 
their white trunks, seen by the dim light which struggled 
through the thick boughs above. Nearer to the sea, the 
valley assumed a more open, though hardly a more cheerful 
character; it looked dark and was overhung by sea-fog 
through the greater part of the year ; and even a farmhouse, 
which usually imparts something of cheerfulness to a land- 
scape, failed to do so here. This valley formed the greater 
part of the estate to which Owen Griffiths became entitled 
by right of his wife. In the higher part of the valley was 
situated the family mansion, or rather dwelling-house ; for 
“ mansion ” is too grand a word to apply to the clumsy, 
but substantially-built Bodowen. It was square and heavy- 
looking, with just that much pretension to ornament neces- 
sary to distinguish it from the mere farmhouse. 

In this dwelling Mrs. Owen Griffiths bore her husband 
239 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

two sons — Llewellyn, the future Squire, and Robert, who 
was early destined for the Church. The only difference 
in their situation, up to the time when Robert was entered 
at Jesus College, was that the elder was invariably indulged 
by all around him, while Robert was thwarted and indulged 
by turns; that Llewellyn never learned anything from the 
poor Welsh parson, who was nominally his private tutor; 
while occasionally Squire Griffiths made a great point of 
enforcing Robert’s diligence, telling him that, as he had 
his bread to earn, he must pay attention to his learning. 
There is no knowing how far the very irregular education 
he had received would have carried Robert through his 
college examinations; but, luckily for him in this respect, 
before such a trial of his learning came round, he heard 
of the death of his elder brother, after a short illness, brought 
on by a hard drinking-bout. Of course, Robert was sum- 
moned home ; and it seemed quite as much of course, now 
that there was no necessity for him to “ earn his bread by 
his learning,” that he should not return to Oxford. So the 
half-educated, but not unintelligent, young man continued 
at home, during the short remainder of his parents’ lifetime. 

His was not an uncommon character. In general he 
was mild, indolent, and easily managed ; but once thoroughly 
roused, his passions were vehement and fearful. He seemed, 
indeed, almost afraid of himself, and in common hardly 
dared to give way to justifiable anger — so much did he 
dread losing his self-control. Had he been judiciously 
educated, he would, probably, have distinguished himself in 
those branches of literature which call for taste and imagina- 
tion, rather than for any exertion of reflection or judgment. 
As it was, his literary taste showed itself in making collec- 
tions of Cambrian antiquities of every description, till his 
stock of Welsh MSS. would have excited the envy of 
Dr. Pugh himself, had he been alive at the time of which 
I write. 

There is one characteristic of Robert Griffiths which I 
have omitted to note, and which was peculiar among his 

240 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

class. He was no hard drinker ; whether it was that his 
head was easily affected, or that his partially-refined taste 
led him to dislike intoxication and its attendant circum- 
stances, I cannot say ; but at five-and-twenty Robert Griffiths 
was habitually sober — a thing so rare in Llyn, that he was 
almost shunned as a churlish, unsociable being, and passed 
much of his time in solitude. 

About this time, he had to appear in some case that was 
tried at the Caernarvon assizes and, while there, was a 
guest at the house of his agent, a shrewd, sensible Welsh 
attorney, with one daughter, who had charms enough to 
captivate Robert Griffiths. Though he remained only a few 
days at her father’s house, they were sufficient to decide his 
affections, and short was the period allowed to elapse before 
he brought home a mistress to Bodowen. The new Mrs. 
Griffiths was a gentle, yielding person, full of love toward 
her husband, of whom, nevertheless, she stood something in 
awe, partly arising from the difference in their ages, partly 
from his devoting much time to studies of which she could 
understand nothing. 

She soon made him the father of a blooming little 
daughter, called Augharad after her mother. Then there 
came several uneventful years in the household of Bodowen ; 
and, when the old women had one and all declared that the 
cradle would not rock again, Mrs. Griffiths bore the son and 
heir. His birth was soon followed by his mother’s death : 
she had been ailing and low-spirited during her pregnancy, 
and she seemed to lack the buoyancy of body and mind 
requisite to bring her round after her time of trial. Her 
husband, who loved her all the more from having few other 
claims on his affections, was deeply grieved by her early 
death, and his only comforter was the sweet little boy whom 
she had left behind. That part of the squire’s character, 
which was so tender, and almost feminine, seemed called 
forth by the helpless situation of the little infant, who 
stretched out his arms to his father with the same earnest 
cooing that happier children make use of to their mother 

241 R 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

alone. Augharad was almost neglected, while the little 
Owen was king of the house ; still, next to his father, none 
tended him so lovingly as his sister. She was so accustomed 
to give way to him that it was no longer a hardship. By 
night and by day Owen was the constant companion of his 
father, and increasing years seemed only to confirm the 
custom. It was an unnatural life for the child, seeing no 
bright little faces peering into his own (for Augharad was, as 
I said before, five or six years older, and her face, poor 
motherless girl ! was often anything but bright), hearing no 
din of clear ringing voices, but day after day sharing the 
otherwise solitary hours of his father, whether in the dim 
room surrounded by wizard-like antiquities, or pattering his 
little feet to keep up with his “ tada ” in his mountain 
rambles or shooting excursions. When the pair came to 
some little foaming brook, where the stepping-stones were 
far and wide, the father carried his little boy across with the 
tenderest care; when the lad was weary, they rested, he 
cradled in his father’s arms, or the Squire would lift him up 
and carry him to his home again. The boy was indulged 
(for his father felt flattered by the desire) in his wish of 
sharing his meals and keeping the same hours. All this 
indulgence did not render Owen unamiable, but it made him 
wilful, and not a happy child. He had a thoughtful look, 
not common to the face of a young boy. He knew no games, 
no merry sports ; his information was of an imaginative and 
speculative character. His father delighted to interest him 
in his own studies, without considering how far they were 
healthy for so young a mind. 

Of course Squire Griffiths was not unaware of the pro- 
phecy which was to be fulfilled in his generation. He would 
occasionally refer to it when among his friends, with scep- 
tical levity ; but in truth it lay nearer to his heart than he 
chose to acknowledge. His strong imagination rendered him 
peculiarly impressionable on such subjects ; while his judg- 
ment, seldom exercised or fortified by severe thought, could 
not prevent his continually recurring to it. He used to gaze 

. 242 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

on the half-sad countenance of the child, who sat looking up 
into his face with his large dark eyes, so fondly yet so 
inquiringly, till the old legend swelled around his heart, and 
became too painful for him not to require sympathy. 
Besides, the overpowering love he bore to the child seemed 
to demand fuller vent than tender words ; it made him like, 
yet dread, to upbraid its object for the fearful contrast 
foretold. Still Squire Griffiths told the legend, in a half- 
jesting manner, to his little son, when they were roaming 
over the wild heaths in the autumn days, “ the saddest of 
the year,” or while they sat in the oak-wainscoted room, 
surrounded by mysterious relics that gleamed strangely forth 
by the flickering fire-light. The legend was wrought into 
the boy’s mind, and he would crave, yet tremble, to hear it 
told over and over again, while the words were intermingled 
with caresses and questions as to his love. Occasionally his 
loving words and actions were cut short by his father’s light 
yet bitter speech — “ Get thee away, my lad ; thou knowest 
not what is to come of all this love.” 

When Augharad was seventeen, and Owen eleven or 
twelve, the rector of the parish in which Bodowen was 
situated endeavoured to prevail on Squire Griffiths to send 
the boy to school. Now, this rector had many tastes in 
common with his parishioner, and was his only intimate; and, 
by repeated arguments, he succeeded in convincing the 
Squire that the unnatural life Owen was leading was in 
every way injurious. Unwillingly was the father brought 
to part from his son ; but he did at length send him to the 
Grammar School at Bangor, then under the management of 
an excellent classic. Here Owen showed that he had more 
talents than the rector had given him credit for, when he 
affirmed that the lad had been completely stupefied by the 
life he led at Bodowen. He bade fair to do credit to the 
school in the peculiar branch of learning for which it was 
famous. But he was not popular among his schoolfellows. 
He was wayward, though, to a certain degree, generous and 
unselfish ; he was reserved but gentle, except when the 

243 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

tremendous bursts of passion (similar in character to those 
of his father) forced their way. 

On his return from school one Christmas-time, when he 
had been a year or so at Bangor, he was stunned by hearing 
that the undervalued Augharad was about to be married to a 
gentleman of South Wales, residing near Aberystwith. Boys 
seldom appreciate their sisters ; but Owen thought of the 
many slights with which he had requited the patient Aug- 
harad, and he gave way to bitter regrets, which, with a 
selfish want of control over his words, he kept expressing to 
his father, until the Squire was thoroughly hurt and chagrined 
at the repeated exclamations of “ What shall we do when 
Augharad is gone ? ” “ How dull we shall be when Augharad 
is married ! ” Owen’s holidays were prolonged a few weeks, 
in order that he might be present at the wedding ; and when 
all the festivities were over, and the bride and bridegroom 
had left Bodowen, the boy and his father really felt how 
much they missed the quiet, loving Augharad. She had 
performed so many thoughtful, noiseless little offices, on 
which their daily comfort depended ; and, now she was gone, 
the household seemed to miss the spirit that peacefully kept 
it in order ; the servants roamed about in search of commands 
and directions ; the rooms had no longer the unobtrusive order- • 
ing of taste to make them cheerful ; the very fires burned dim, 
and were always sinking down into dull heaps of grey ashes. 
Altogether Owen did not regret his return to Bangor, and 
this also the mortified parent perceived. Squire Griffiths 
was a selfish parent. 

Letters in those days were a rare occurrence. Owen 
usually received one during his half-yearly absences from 
home, and occasionally his father paid him a visit. This 
half-year the boy had no visit, nor even a letter, till 
very near the time of his leaving school, and then he was 
astounded by the intelligence that his father was married 
again. 

Then came one of his paroxysms of rage ; the more 
disastrous in its effects upon his character because it could 

244 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

find no vent in action. Independently of slight to the 
memory of his first wife, which children are so apt to fancy 
such an action implies, Owen had hitherto considered himself 
(and with justice) the first object of his father’s life. They 
had been so much to each other and now a shapeless, but 
too real, something had come between him and his father 
for ever. He felt as if his permission should have been 
asked, as if he should have been consulted. Certainly he 
ought to have been told of the intended event. So the 
Squire felt, and hence his constrained letter, which had so 
much increased the bitterness of Owen’s feelings. 

With all this anger, when Owen saw his stepmother, he 
thought he had never seen so beautiful a woman for her 
age ; for she was no longer in the bloom of youth, being a 
widow when his father married her. Her manners, to the 
Welsh lad, who had seen little of female grace among the 
families of the few antiquarians with whom his father visited, 
were so fascinating that he watched her with a sort of 
breathless admiration. Her measured grace, her faultless 
movements, her tones of voice, sweet, till the ear was sated 
with their sweetness, made Owen less angry at his father’s 
marriage. Yet he felt, more than ever, that the cloud was 
between him and his father; that the hasty letter he had 
sent in answer to the announcement of his wedding was not 
forgotten, although no allusion was ever made to it. He 
was no longer his father’s confidant — hardly ever his father’s 
companion ; for the newly-married wife was all in all to the 
Squire, and his son felt himself almost a cipher, where he 
had so long been everything. The lady herself had ever the 
softest consideration for her stepson ; almost too obtrusive 
was the attention paid to his wishes ; but still he fancied 
that the heart had no part in the winning advances. There 
was a watchful glance of the eye that Owen once or twice 
caught when she had imagined herself unobserved, and many 
other nameless little circumstances, that gave him a strong 
feeling of want of sincerity in his stepmother. Mrs. Owen 
brought with her into the family her little child by her first 

245 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

husband, a boy nearly three years old. He was one of those 
selfish, observant, mocking children, over whose feelings you 
seem to have no control : agile and mischievous, his little 
practical jokes, at first performed in ignorance of the pain he 
gave, but afterward proceeding to a malicious pleasure in 
suffering, really seemed to afford some ground to the super- 
stitious notion of some of the common people that he was a 
fairy changeling. 

Years passed on ; and as Owen grew older he became 
more observant. He saw, even in his occasional visits at 
home (for from school he had passed on to college), that a 
great change had taken place in the outward manifestations 
of his father’s character ; and, by degrees, Owen traced this 
change to the influence of his stepmother ; so slight, so 
imperceptible to the common observer, yet so resistless in 
its effects. Squire Griffiths caught up his wife’s humbly 
advanced opinions, and, unawares to himself, adopted them 
as his own, defying all argument and opposition. It was the 
same with her wishes ; they met their fulfilment, from the 
extreme and delicate art with which she insinuated them 
into her husband’s mind as his own. She sacrificed the 
show of authority for the power. At last, when Owen per- 
ceived some oppressive act in his father’s conduct towards 
his dependants, or some unaccountable thwarting of his own 
wishes, he fancied he saw his stepmother’s secret influence 
thus displayed, however much she might regret the injustice 
of his father’s actions in her conversations with him when 
they were alone. His father was fast losing his temperate 
habits, and frequent intoxication soon took its usual effect 
upon the temper. Yet even here was the spell of his wife 
upon him. Before her he placed a restraint upon his passion, 
yet she was perfectly aware of his irritable disposition, and 
directed it hither and thither with the same apparent ignorance 
of the tendency of her words. 

Meanwhile Owen’s situation became peculiarly mortify- 
ing to a youth whose early remembrances afforded such a 
contrast to his present state. As a child, he had been 

246 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

elevated to the consequence of a man before his years gave 
any mental check to the selfishness which such conduct was 
likely to engender ; he could remember when his will was 
law to the servants and dependants, and his sympathy 
necessary to his father: now he was as a cipher in his 
father’s house ; and the Squire, estranged in the first 
instance by a feeling of the injury he had done his son in 
not sooner acquainting him with his purposed marriage, 
seemed rather to avoid than to seek him as a companion, 
and too frequently showed the most utter indifference to 
the feelings and wishes which a young man of a high and 
independent spirit might be supposed to indulge. 

Perhaps Owen was not fully aware of the force of all 
these circumstances; for an actor in a family drama is 
seldom unimpassioned enough to be perfectly observant. 
But he became moody and soured ; brooding over his 
unloved existence, and craving with a human heart after 
sympathy. 

This feeling took more full possession of his mind when 
he had left college, and returned home to lead an idle and 
purposeless life. As the heir, there was no worldly necessity 
for exertion : his father was too much of a Welsh squire to 
dream of the moral necessity; and he himself had not 
sufficient strength of mind to decide at once upon abandoning 
a place and mode of life which abounded in daily mortifica- 
tions. Yet to this course his judgment was slowly tending, 
when some circumstances occurred to detain him at 
Bodowen. 

It was not to be expected that harmony would long be 
preserved, even in appearance, between an unguarded and 
soured young man, such as Owen, and his wary stepmother, 
when he had once left college, and come, not as a visitor, 
but as the heir, to his father’s house. Some cause of 
difference occurred, where the woman subdued her hidden 
anger sufficiently to become convinced that Owen was not 
entirely the dupe she had believed him to be. Henceforward 
there was no peace between them. Not in vulgar altercations 

247 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

did this show itself ; but in moody reserve on Owen’s 
part, and in undisguised and contemptuous pursuance of 
her own plans by his stepmother. Bodowen was no longer 
a place where, if Owen was not loved or attended, to, he 
could at least find peace and care for himself : he was 
thwarted at every step, and in every wish, by his father’s 
desire, apparently, while the wife sat by with a smile of 
triumph on her beautiful lips. 

So Owen went forth at the early day-dawn, sometimes 
roaming about on the shore or the upland, shooting or 
fishing, as the season might be, but oftener “ stretched in 
indolent repose ” on the short, sweet grass, indulging in 
gloomy and morbid reveries. He would fancy that this 
mortified state of existence was a dream, a horrible dream, 
from which he should awake and find himself again the sole 
object and darling of his father. And then he would start 
up and strive to shake off the incubus. There was the molten 
sunset of his childish memory ; the gorgeous crimson piles 
of glory in the west, fading away into the cold calm light of 
the rising moon, while here and there a cloud floated across 
the western heaven, like a seraph’s wing, in its flaming 
beauty ; the earth was the same as in his childhood’s days, 
full of gentle evening sounds, and the harmonies of twilight 
— the breeze came sweeping low over the heather and blue- 
bells by his side, and the turf was sending up its evening 
incense of perfume. But life, and heart, and hope were 
changed for ever since those bygone days ! 

Or he would seat himself in a favourite niche of the rocks 
on Moel G6st, hidden by a stunted growth of the whitty, or 
mountain-ash, from general observation, with a rich-tinted 
cushion of stone- crop for his feet, and a straight precipice of 
rock rising just above. Here would he sit for hours, gazing 
idly at the bay below with its background of purple hills, 
and the little fishing-sail on its bosom, showing white in the 
sunbeam, and gliding on in such harmony with the quiet 
beauty of the glassy sea ; or he would pull out an old school- 
volume, his companion for years, and in morbid accordance 

248 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

with the dark legend that still lurked in the recesses of his 
mind — a shape of gloom in those innermost haunts awaiting 
its time to come forth in distinct outline — would he turn to 
the old Greek dramas which treat of a family foredoomed by 
an avenging Fate. The worn page opened of itself at the 
play of the CE dipus Tyrannus, and Owen dwelt with the 
craving disease upon the prophecy so nearly resembling 
that which concerned himself. With his consciousness of 
neglect, there was a sort of self -flattery in the consequence 
which the legend gave him. He almost wondered how 
they durst, with slights and insults, thus provoke the 
Avenger. 

The days drifted onward. Often he would vehemently 
pursue some sylvan sport, till thought and feeling were lost 
in the violence of bodily exertion. Occasionally his evenings 
were spent at a small public-house, such as stood by the 
unfrequented wayside, where the welcome — hearty, though 
bought — seemed so strongly to contrast with the gloomy 
negligence of home — unsympathising home. 

One evening (Owen might be four or five-and-twenty), 
wearied with a day’s shooting on the Clenneny Moors, he 
passed by the open door of “ The Goat ” at Penmorfa. The 
light and the cheeriness within tempted him, poor self- 
exhausted man ! as it has done many a one more wretched 
in worldly circumstances, to step in, and take his evening 
meal where at least his presence was of some consequence. 
It was a busy day in that little hostel. A flock of sheep, 
amounting to some hundreds, had arrived at Penmorfa, on 
their road to England, and thronged the space before the 
house. Inside was the shrewd, kind-hearted hostess, bustling 
to and fro, with merry greetings for every tired drover who 
was to pass the night in her house, while the sheep were 
penned in a field close by. Ever and anon, she kept attend- 
ing to the second crowd of guests, who were celebrating a 
rural wedding in her house. It was busy work to Martha 
Thomas, yet her smile never flagged; and when Owen 
Griffiths had finished his evening meal she was there, ready 

249 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

with a hope that it had done him good, and was to his mind, 
and a word of intelligence that the wedding- folk were about 
to dance in the kitchen, and the harper was the famous 
Edward of Corwen. 

Owen, partly from good-natured compliance with his 
hostess’s implied wish, and partly from curiosity, lounged to 
the passage which led to the kitchen — not the every-day, 
working, cooking kitchen, which was behind, but a good- 
sized room, where the mistress sat when her work was 
done, and where the country people were commonly enter- 
tained at such merry-makings as the present. The lintels 
of the door formed a frame for the animated picture which 
Owen saw within, as he leaned against the wall in the dark 
passage. The red light of the fire, with every now and then 
a falling piece of turf sending forth a fresh blaze, shone full 
upon four young men who were dancing a measure some- 
thing like a Scotch reel, keeping admirable time in their 
rapid movements to the capital tune the harper was playing. 
They had their hats on when Owen first took his stand, but 
as they grew more and more animated they flung them 
away, and presently their shoes were kicked off with like 
disregard to the spot where they might happen to alight. 
Shouts of applause followed any remarkable exertion of 
agility, in which each seemed to try to excel his companions. 
At length, wearied and exhausted, they sat down, and the 
harper gradually changed to one of those wild, inspiring 
national airs for which he was so famous. The thronged 
audience sat earnest and breathless, and you might have 
heard a pin drop, except when some maiden passed hurriedly, 
with flaring candle and busy look, through to the real 
kitchen beyond. When he had finished his beautiful theme 
of “ The March of the Men of Harlech,” he changed the 
measure again to “ Tri chant o’ bunnan ” (Three hundred 
pounds), and immediately a most unmusical-looking man 
began chanting “ Pennillion,” or a sort of recitative stanzas, 
which were soon taken up by another ; and this amusement 
lasted so long that Owen grew weary, and was thinking of 

250 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

retreating from his post by the door, when some little bustle 
was occasioned, on the opposite side of the room, by the 
entrance of a middle-aged man, a*nd a young girl, apparently 
his daughter. The man advanced to the bench occupied by 
the seniors of the party, who welcomed him with the usual 
pretty Welsh greeting, “Pa sut mae dy galon?” (“How is 
thy heart ? ”) and drinking his health passed on to him the 
cup of excellent cwrw. The girl, evidently a village belle, 
was as warmly greeted by the young men, while the girls 
eyed her rather askance with a half-jealous look, which Owen 
set down to the score of her extreme prettiness. Like most 
Welsh women, she was of middle size as to height, but 
beautifully made, with the most perfect yet delicate 
roundness in every limb. Her little mob-cap was carefully 
adjusted to a face which was excessively pretty, though it 
never could be called handsome. It also was round, with 
the slightest tendency to the oval shape, richly coloured, 
though somewhat olive in complexion, with dimples in cheek 
and chin, and the most scarlet lips Owen had ever seen, that 
were too short to meet over the small pearly teeth. The 
nose was the most defective feature ; but the eyes were 
splendid. They were so long, so lustrous, yet at times so 
very soft under their thick fringe of eyelash ! The nut- 
brown hair was carefully braided beneath the border of 
delicate lace : it was evident the little village beauty knew 
how to make the most of all her attractions, for the gay 
colours which were displayed in her neckerchief were in 
complete harmony with the complexion. 

Owen was much attracted, while yet he was amused, by 
the evident coquetry the girl displayed, collecting around her 
a whole bevy of young fellows, for each of whom she seemed 
to have some gay speech, some attractive look or action. In 
a few minutes young Griffiths of Bodowen was at her side, 
brought thither by a variety of idle motives, and as her 
undivided attention was given to the Welsh heir, her ad- 
mirers, one by one, dropped off, to seat themselves by some 
less fascinating but more attentive fair one. The more 

251 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

Owen conversed with the girl, the more he was taken ; she 
had more wit and talent than he had fancied possible ; a 
self-abandon and thoughtfulness, to boot, that seemed full of 
charms ; and then her voice was so clear and sweet, and her 
actions so full of grace, that Owen was fascinated before 
he was well aware, and kept looking into her bright, 
blushing face, till her uplifted flashing eye fell beneath his 
earnest gaze. 

While it thus happened that they were silent — she from 
confusion at the unexpected warmth of his admiration, he 
from an unconsciousness of anything but the beautiful 
changes in her flexile countenance — the man whom Owen 
took for her father came up and addressed some observation 
to his daughter, from whence he glided into some common- 
place though respectful remark to Owen ; and at length, 
engaging him in some slight, local conversation, he led the 
way to the account of a spot on the peninsula of Penthryn, 
where teal abounded, and concluded with begging Owen to 
allow him to show him the exact place, saying that whenever 
the young Squire felt so inclined, if he would honour him by 
a call at his house, he would take him across in his boat. 
While Owen listened, his attention was not so much absorbed 
as to be unaware that the little beauty at his side was re- 
fusing one or two who endeavoured to draw her from her 
place by invitations to dance. Flattered by his own con- 
struction of her refusals, he again directed all his attention 
to her, till she was called away by her father, who was 
leaving the scene of festivity. Before he left he reminded 
Owen of his promise, and added — 

“ Perhaps, sir, you do not know me. My name is Ellis 
Pritchard, and I live at Ty Glas, on this side of Moel Gest ; 
any one can point it out to you.” 

When the father and daughter had left, Owen slowly 
prepared for his ride home ; but, encountering the hostess, 
he could not resist asking a few questions relative to Ellis 
Pritchard and his pretty daughter. She answered shortly 
but respectfully, and then said, rather hesitatingly — 

252 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

“ Master Griffiths, you know the triad, ‘ Tri pheth tebyg 
y naill i’r llall , ysgnbwr heb yd, mail deg heb ddiawd , a 
merch deg heb ei geirda ’ (Three things are alike : a fine 
barn without corn, a fine cup without drink, a fine woman 
without her reputation).” She hastily quitted him, and 
Owen rode slowly to his unhappy home. 

Ellis Pritchard, half farmer and half fisherman, was 
shrewd, and keen, and worldly ; yet he was good-natured, 
and sufficiently generous to have become rather a popular 
man among his equals. He had been struck with the 
young Squire’s attention to his pretty daughter, and was 
not insensible to the advantages to be derived from it. 
Nest would not be the first peasant-girl, by any means, who 
had been transplanted to a Welsh manor-house as its 
mistress; and, accordingly, her father had shrewdly given 
the admiring young man some pretext for further oppor- 
tunities of seeing her. 

As for Nest herself, she had somewhat of her father’s 
worldliness, and was fully alive to the superior station of her 
new admirer, and quite prepared to slight all her old sweet- 
hearts on his account. But then she had something more of 
feeling in her reckoning ; she had not been insensible to the 
earnest yet comparatively refined homage which Owen paid 
her ; she had noticed his expressive and occasionally hand- 
some countenance with admiration, and was flattered by his 
so immediately singling her out from her companions. As 
to the hint which Martha Thomas had thrown out, it is 
enough to say that Nest was very giddy, and that she was 
motherless. She had high spirits and a great love of 
admiration, or, to use a softer term, she loved to please ; men, 
women, and children, all, she delighted to gladden with her 
smile and voice. She coquetted, and flirted, and went to the 
extreme lengths of Welsh courtship, till the seniors of the 
village shook their heads, and cautioned their daughters 
against her acquaintance. If not absolutely guilty, she had 
too frequently been on the verge of guilt. 

Even at the time, Martha Thomas’s hint made but little 
253 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

impression on Owen, for his senses were otherwise occupied ; 
but in a few days the recollection thereof had wholly died 
away, and one warm glorious summer’s day he bent his 
steps toward Ellis Pritchard’s with a beating heart ; for, 
except some very slight flirtations at Oxford, Owen had 
never been touched ; his thoughts, his fancy, had been 
otherwise engaged. 

Ty Glas was built against one of the lower rocks of Moel 
Ggst, which, indeed, formed a side to the low, lengthy house. 
The materials of the cottage were the shingly stones which 
had fallen from above, plastered rudely together, with deep 
recesses for the small oblong windows. Altogether, the 
exterior was much ruder than Owen had expected; but 
inside there seemed no lack of comforts. The house was 
divided into two apartments, one large, roomy, and dark, 
into which Owen entered immediately; and, before the 
blushing Nest came from the inner chamber (for she had 
seen the young Squire coming, and hastily gone to make 
some alteration in her dress), he had had time to look around 
him, and note the various little particulars of the room. 
Beneath the window (which commanded a magnificent view) 
was an oaken dresser, replete with drawers and cupboards, 
and brightly polished to a rich dark colour. In the farther 
part of the room Owen could at first distinguish little, 
entering as he did from the glaring sunlight; but he soon 
saw that there were two oaken beds, closed up after the 
manner of the Welsh: in fact, the dormitories of Ellis 
Pritchard and the man who served under him, both on sea 
and on land. There was the large wheel used for spinning 
wool, left standing on the middle of the floor, as if in use 
only a few minutes before ; and around the ample chimney 
hung flitches of bacon, dried kids’-flesh, and fish, that was in 
process of smoking for winter’s store. 

Before Nest had shyly dared to enter, her father, who 
had been mending his nets down below, and seen Owen 
winding up to the house, came in and gave him a hearty yet 
respectful welcome ; and then Nest, downcast and blushing, 

2 54 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

full of the consciousness which her father’s advice and con- 
versation had not failed to inspire, ventured to join them. 
To Owen’s mind this reserve and shyness gave her new 
charms. 

It was too bright, too hot, too anything to think of going 
to shoot teal till later in the day, and Owen was delighted to 
accept a hesitating invitation to share the noonday meal. 
Some ewe-milk cheese, very hard and dry, oat-cake, slips of 
the dried kid’s -flesh broiled, after having been previously 
soaked in water for a few minutes, delicious butter and 
fresh butter-milk, with a liquor called “ diod griafol ” 
(made from the berries of the Sorbus aucuparia, infused in 
water and then fermented), composed the frugal repast ; but 
there was something so clean and neat, and withal such a 
true welcome, that Owen had seldom enjoyed a meal so 
much. Indeed, at that time of day the Welsh squires differed 
from the farmers more in the plenty and rough abundance of 
their manner of living than in the refinement of style of their 
table. 

At the present day, down in Llyn, the Welsh gentry are 
not a wit behind their Saxon equals in the expensive 
elegances of life ; but then (when there was but one pewter- 
service in all Northumberland) there was nothing in Ellis 
Pritchard’s mode of living that grated on the young Squire’s 
sense of refinement. 

Little was said by that young pair of wooers during the 
meal ; the father had all the conversation to himself, appar- 
ently heedless of the ardent looks and inattentive mien of his 
guest. As Owen became more serious in his feelings, he 
grew more timid in their expression, and at night, when they 
returned from their shooting-excursion, the caress he gave 
Nest was almost as bashfully offered as received. 

This was but the first of a series of days devoted to Nest 
in reality, though at first he thought some little disguise of 
his object was necessary. The past, the future, was all 
forgotten in those happy days of love. 

And every worldly plan, every womanly wile was put in 

255 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

practice by Ellis Pritchard and his daughter, to render his 
visits agreeable and alluring. Indeed, the very circumstance 
of his being welcome was enough to attract the poor young 
man, to whom the feeling so produced was new and full of 
charms. He left a home where the certainty of being 
thwarted made him chary in expressing his wishes ; where 
no tones of love ever fell on his ear, save those addressed 
to others ; where his presence or absence was a matter of 
utter indifference ; and when he entered Ty Glas, all, down 
to the little cur which, with clamorous barkings, claimed a 
part of his attention, seemed to rejoice. His account of his 
day’s employment found a willing listener in Ellis ; and 
when he passed on to Nest, busy at her wheel or at her 
churn, the deepened colour, the conscious eye, and the 
gradual yielding of herself up to his lover-like caress, had 
worlds of charms. Ellis Pritchard was a tenant on the 
Bodowen estate, and therefore had reasons in plenty for 
wishing to keep the young Squire’s visits secret ; and Owen, 
unwilling to disturb the sunny calm of these halcyon days by 
any storm at home, was ready to use all the artifice which 
Ellis suggested as to the mode of his calls at Ty Glas. Nor 
was he unaware of the probable, nay, the hoped-for termina- 
tion of these repeated days of happiness. He was quite 
conscious that the father wished for nothing better than the 
marriage of his daughter to the heir of Bodowen ; and when 
Nest had hidden her face in his neck, which was encircled by 
her clasping arms, and murmured into his ear her acknow- 
ledgment of love, he felt only too desirous of finding some one 
to love him for ever. Though not highly principled, he 
would not have tried to obtain Nest on other terms save 
those of marriage : he did so pine after enduring love, and 
fancied he should have bound her heart for evermore to his, 
when they had taken the solemn oaths of matrimony. 

There was no great difficulty attending a secret marriage 
at such a place and at such a time. One gusty autumn 
day, Ellis ferried them round Penthryn to Llandutrwyn, and 
there saw his little Nest become future Lady of Bodowen. 

256 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

How often do we see giddy, coquetting, restless girls 
become sobered by marriage? A great object in life is 
decided, one on which their thoughts have been running in 
all their vagaries ; and they seem to verify the beautiful fable 
of Undine. A new soul beams out in the gentleness and 
repose of their future lives. An indescribable softness and 
tenderness takes the place of the wearying vanity of their 
former endeavours to attract admiration. Something of this 
sort happened to Nest Pritchard. If at first she had been 
anxious to attract the young Squire of Bodowen, long before 
her marriage this feeling had merged into a truer love than 
she had ever felt before ; and now that he was her own, 
her husband, her whole soul was bent toward making him 
amends, as far as in her lay, for the misery which, with a 
woman’s tact, she saw that he had to endure at his home. 
Her greetings were abounding in delicately-expressed love ; 
her study of his tastes unwearying, in the arrangement of 
her dress, her time, her very thoughts. 

No wonder that he looked back on his wedding-day 
with a thankfulness which is seldom the result of unequal 
marriages. No wonder that his heart beat aloud as formerly 
when he wound up the little path to Ty Glas, and saw — keen 
though the winter’s wind might be — that Nest was standing 
out at the door to watch for his dimly-seen approach, while 
the candle flared in the little window as a beacon to guide 
him aright. 

The angry words and unkind actions of home fell 
deadened on his heart ; he thought of the love that was 
surely his, and of the new promise of love that a short time 
would bring forth ; and he could almost have smiled at the 
impotent efforts to disturb his peace. 

A few more months, and the young father was 
greeted by a feeble little cry, when he hastily entered Ty 
Glas, one morning early, in consequence of a summons 
conveyed mysteriously to Bodowen; and the pale mother, 
smiling, and feebly holding up her babe to its father’s 
kiss, seemed to him even more lovely than the bright, 

257 S 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

gay Nest who had won his heart at the little inn of 
Penmorfa. 

But the curse was at work ! The fulfilment of the 
prophecy was nigh at hand ! 


CHAPTER II 

It was the autumn after the birth of their boy ; it had been 
a glorious summer, with bright, hot, sunny weather ; and 
now the year was fading away as seasonably into mellow 
days, with mornings of silver mists and clear frosty nights. 
The blooming look of the time of flowers was past and gone ; 
but instead there were even richer tints abroad in the sun- 
coloured leaves, the lichens, the golden-blossomed furze ; if 
it was the time of fading, there was a glory in the decay. 

Nest, in her loving anxiety to surround her dwelling with 
every charm for her husband’s sake, had turned gardener, 
and the little corners of the rude court before the house 
were filled with many a delicate mountain-flower, trans- 
planted more for its beauty than its rarity. The sweetbrier 
bush may even yet be seen, old and grey, which she and 
Owen planted, a green slipling, beneath the window of her 
little chamber. In those moments Owen forgot all besides 
the present; all the cares and griefs he had known in the 
past, and all that might await him of woe and death in the 
future. The boy, too, was as lovely a child as the fondest 
parent was ever blessed with, and crowed with delight, and 
clapped his little hands, as his mother held him in her arms 
at the cottage door to watch his father’s ascent up the rough 
path that led to Ty Glas, one bright autumnal morning ; and, 
when the three entered the house together, it was difficult to 
say which was the happiest. Owen carried his boy, and 
tossed and played with him, while Nest sought out some 
little article of work, and seated herself on the dresser beneath 

258 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

the window, where, now busily plying the needle, and then 
again looking at her husband, she eagerly told him the little 
pieces of domestic intelligence, the winning ways of the 
child, the result of yesterday’s fishing, and such of the gossip 
of Penmorfa as came to the ears of the now retired Nest. 
She noticed that, when she mentioned any little circumstance 
which bore the slightest reference to Bodowen, her husband 
appeared chafed and uneasy, and at last avoided anything 
that might in the least remind him of home. In truth, he 
had been suffering much of late from the irritability of his 
father, shown in trifles to be sure, but not the less galling 
on that account. 

While they were thus talking, and caressing each other 
and the child, a shadow darkened the room, and before they 
could catch a glimpse of the object that had occasioned it, it 
vanished, and Squire Griffiths lifted the door-latch, and stood 
before them. He stood and looked — first on his son, so 
different, in his buoyant expression of content and enjoy- 
ment, with his noble child in his arms, like a proud and 
happy father, as he was, from the depressed, moody young 
man he too often appeared at Bodowen; then on Nest — • 
poor, trembling, sickened Nest ! — who dropped her work, but 
yet durst not stir from her seat on the dresser, while she 
looked to her husband as if for protection from his father. 

The Squire was silent, as he glared from one to the other, 
his features white with restrained passion. When he spoke, 
his words came most distinct in their forced composure. It 
was to his son he addressed himself — 

“ That woman ! who is she ? ” 

Owen hesitated one moment, and then replied, in a steady, 
yet quiet, voice — 

“ Father, that woman is my wife.” 

He would have added some apology for the long con- 
cealment of his marriage; have appealed to his father’s 
forgiveness ; but the foam flew from Squire Owen’s lips as 
he burst forth with invective against Nest — 

“ You have married her ! It is as they told me ! Married 
259 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

Nest Pritchard, yr buten ! And yon stand there as if you 
had not disgraced yourself for ever and ever with your 
accursed wiving ! And the fair harlot sits there, in her 
mocking modesty, practising the mimming airs that will 
become her state as future Lady of Bodowen. But. I will 
move heaven and earth before that false woman darken the 
doors of my father’s house as mistress ! ” 

All this was said with such rapidity that Owen had no 
time for the words that thronged to his lips. “ Father ! ” (he 
burst forth at length) “ Father, whosoever told you that 
Nest Pritchard was a harlot told you a lie as false as hell ! 
Ay ! a lie as false as hell ! ” he added, in a voice of thunder, 
while he advanced a step or two nearer to the Squire. And 
then, in a lower tone, he said — - 

“ She is as pure as your own wife ; nay, God help me ! as 
the dear, precious mother who brought me forth, and then 
left me — with no refuge in a mother’s heart — to struggle on 
through life alone. I tell you Nest is as pure as that dear, 
dead mother ! ” 

“ Fool — poor fool ! ” 

At this moment the child — the little Owen — who had 
kept gazing from one countenance to the other, and with 
earnest look, trying to understand what had brought the 
fierce glare into the face where till now he had read nothing 
but love, in some way attracted the Squire’s attention, and 
increased his wrath. 

“ Yes,” he continued, “ poor, weak fool that you are, 
hugging the child of another as if it were your own off- 
spring ! ” Owen involuntarily caressed the affrighted child, 
and half smiled at the implication of his father’s words. This 
the Squire perceived, and raising his voice to a scream of 
rage, he went on — 

“ I bid you, if you call yourself my son, to cast away that 
miserable, shameless woman’s offspring; cast it away this 
instant — this instant ! ” 

In this ungovernable rage, seeing that Owen was far from 
complying with his command, he snatched the poor infant 

260 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

from the loving arms that held it, and throwing it to his 
mother, left the house inarticulate with fury. 

Nest — who had been pale and still as marble during this 
terrible dialogue, looking on and listening as if fascinated 
by the words that smote her heart — opened her arms to 
receive and cherish her precious babe ; but the boy was not 
destined to reach the white refuge of her breast. The furious 
action of the Squire had been almost without aim, and the 
infant fell against the sharp edge of the dresser down on to 
the stone floor. 

Owen sprang up to take the child, but he lay so still, so 
motionless, that the awe of death came over the father, and 
he stooped down to gaze more closely. At that moment, 
the upturned, filmy eyes rolled convulsively — a spasm passed 
along the body — and the lips, yet warm with kissing, quivered 
into everlasting rest. 

A word from her husband told Nest all. She slid down 
from her seat, and lay by her little son as corpse-like as he, 
unheeding all the agonising endearments and passionate 
adjurations of her husband. And that poor, desolate 
husband and father ! Scarce one little quarter of an hour, 
and he had been so blessed in his consciousness of love ! the 
bright promise of many years on his infant’s face, and the 
new, fresh soul beaming forth in its awakened intelligence. 
And there it was : the little clay image, that would never 
more gladden up at the sight of him, nor stretch forth to 
meet his embrace ; whose inarticulate, yet most eloquent 
cooings might haunt him in his dreams, but would never 
more be heard in waking life again ! And by the dead babe, 
almost as utterly insensate, the poor mother had fallen in a 
merciful faint — the slandered, heart-pierced Nest ! Owen 
struggled against the sickness that came over him, and 
busied himself in vain attempts at her restoration. 

It was now near noon-day, and Ellis Pritchard came 
home, little dreaming of the sight that awaited him ; but, 
though stunned, he was able to take more effectual measures 
for his poor daughter’s recovery than Owen had done. 

261 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

By-and-by she showed symptoms of returning sense, 
and was placed in her own little bed in a darkened room, 
where, without ever waking to complete consciousness, she 
fell asleep. Then it was that her husband, suffocated by 
pressure of miserable thought, gently drew his hand from her 
tightened clasp and, printing one long soft kiss on her white 
waxen forehead, hastily stole out of the room, and out of the 
house. 

Near the base of Moel G6st — it might be a quarter of a 
mile from Ty Glas — was a little neglected solitary copse, 
wild and tangled with the trailing branches of the dog-rose 
and the tendrils of the white bryony. Toward the middle of 
this thicket lay a deep crystal pool— a clear mirror for the 
blue heavens above — and round the margin floated the broad 
green leaves of the water-lily ; and, when the regal sun shone 
down in his noon-day glory, the flowers arose from their cool 
depths to welcome and greet him. The copse was musical 
with many sounds; the warbling of birds rejoicing in its 
shades, the ceaseless hum . of the insects that hovered over 
the pool, the chime of the distant waterfall, the occasional 
bleating of the sheep from the mountain-top, were all blended 
into the delicious harmony of nature. 

It had been one of Owen’s favourite resorts when he had 
been a lonely wanderer — a pilgrim in search of love in the 
years gone by. And thither he went, as if by instinct, when 
he left Ty Glas ; quelling the uprising agony till he should 
reach that little solitary spot. 

It was the time of day when a change in the aspect of 
the weather so frequently takes place, and the little pool 
was no longer the reflection of a blue and sunny sky ; it sent 
back the dark and slaty clouds above ; and, every now and 
then, a rough gust shook the painted autumn leaves from 
their branches, and all other music was lost in the sound of 
the wild winds piping down from the moorlands, which lay 
up and beyond the clefts in the mountain-side. Presently 
the rain came on and beat down in torrents. 

But Owen heeded it not. He sat on the dank ground, 
262 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

his face buried in his hands, and his whole strength, physical 
and mental, employed in quelling the rush of blood which 
rose and boiled and gurgled in his brain, as if it would 
madden him. 

The phantom of his dead child rose ever before him, and 
seemed to cry aloud for vengeance. And, when the poor 
young man thought upon the victim whom he required in 
his wild longing for revenge, he shuddered, for it was his 
father ! 

Again and again he tried not to think ; but still the circle 
of thought came round, eddying through his brain. At 
length he mastered his passions, and they were calm ; then 
he forced himself to arrange some plan for the future. 

He had not, in the passionate hurry of the moment, seen 
that his father had left the cottage before he was aware of 
the fatal accident that befell the child. Owen thought he 
had seen all ; and once he planned to go to the Squire and 
tell him of the anguish of heart he had wrought, and awe 
him, as it were, by the dignity of grief. But then again he 
durst not — he distrusted his self-control — the old prophecy 
rose up in its horror — he dreaded his doom. 

At last he determined to leave his father for ever ; to take 
Nest to some distant country where she might forget her 
firstborn, and where he himself might gain a livelihood by 
his own exertions. 

But when he tried to descend to the various little ar- 
rangements which were involved in the execution of this 
plan, he remembered that all his money (and in this respect 
Squire Griffiths was no niggard) was locked up in his escri- 
toire at Bodowen. In vain he tried to do away with this 
matter-of-fact difficulty ; go to Bodowen he must ; and his 
only hope — nay, his determination — was to avoid his father. 

He rose and took a by-path to Bodowen. The house 
looked even more gloomy and desolate than usual in the 
heavy downpouring rain ; yet Owen gazed on it with some- 
thing of regret — for, sorrowful as his days in it had been, he 
was about to leave it for many many years, if not for ever. 

263 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

He entered by a side door opening into a passage that led to 
his own room, where he kept his books, his guns, his fishing- 
tackle, his writing materials, et cetera. 

Here he hurriedly began to select the few articles he 
intended to take ; for, besides the dread of interruption, he 
was feverishly anxious to travel far that very night, if only 
Nest was capable of performing the journey. As he was 
thus employed, he tried to conjecture what his father’s 
feelings would be on finding that his once-loved son was gone 
away for ever. Would he then awaken to regret for the 
conduct which had driven him from home, and bitterly think 
on the loving and caressing boy who haunted his footsteps 
in former days ? Or, alas ! would he only feel that an 
obstacle to his daily happiness — to his contentment with his 
wife, and his strange, doting affection for the child — was 
taken away? Would they make merry over the heir’s 
departure ? Then he thought of Nest — the young childless 
mother, whose heart had not yet realised her fulness of 
desolation. Poor Nest ! so loving as she was, so devoted to 
her child — how should he console her? He pictured her 
away in a strange land, pining for her native mountains, and 
refusing to be comforted because her child was not. 

Even this thought of the home- sickness that might 
possibly beset Nest hardly made him hesitate in his deter- 
mination ; so strongly had the idea taken possession of him, 
that only by putting miles and leagues between him and his 
father could he avert the doom which seemed blending itself 
with the very purposes of his life, as long as he stayed in 
proximity with the slayer of his child. 

He had now nearly completed his hasty work of prepara- 
tion, and was full of tender thoughts of his wife, when the 
door opened, and the elfish Eobert peered in, in search of 
some of his brother’s possessions. On seeing Owen he 
hesitated, but then came boldly forward, and laid his hand 
on Owen’s arm, saying — 

“ Nesta yr buten ! How is Nest yr buten ? ” 

He looked maliciously into Owen’s face to mark the 
264 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

effect of his words, but was terrified at the expression he 
read there. He started off and ran to the door, while Owen 
tried to check himself, saying continually, “ He is but a 
child. He does not understand the meaning of what he 
says. He is but a child!” Still Robert, now in fancied 
security, kept calling out his insulting words, and Owen’s 
hand was on his gun, grasping it as if to restrain his rising 
fury. 

But, when Robert passed on daringly to mocking words 
relating to the poor dead child, Owen could bear it no 
longer; and, before the boy was well aware, Owen was 
fiercely holding him in an iron clasp with one hand, while 
he struck him hard with the other. 

In a minute he checked himself. He paused, relaxed his 
grasp, and, to his horror, he saw Robert sink to the ground ; 
in fact, the lad was half-stunned, half-frightened, and 
thought it best to assume insensibility. 

Owen — miserable Owen — seeing him lie there prostrate, 
was bitterly repentant, and would have dragged him to the 
carved settle, and done all he could to restore him to his 
senses ; but at this instant the Squire came in. 

Probably, when the household at Bodowen rose that 
morning, there was but one among them ignorant of the 
heir’s relation to Nest Pritchard and her child ; for, secret as 
he tried to make his visits to Ty Glas, they had been too 
frequent not to be noticed, and Nest’s altered conduct — no 
longer frequenting dances and merry-makings — was a 
strongly corroborative circumstance. But Mrs. Griffiths’ 
influence reigned paramount, if unacknowledged, at Bodo- 
wen ; and, till she sanctioned the disclosure, none would dare 
to tell the Squire. 

Now, however, the time drew near when it suited her 
to make her husband aware of the connection his son had 
formed ; so, with many tears, and much seeming reluctance, 
she broke the intelligence to him — taking good care, at the 
same time, to inform him of the light character Nest had 
borne. Nor did she confine this evil reputation to her 

265 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

conduct before her marriage, but insinuated that even to 
this day she was a “ woman of the grove and brake ” — for 
centuries the Welsh term of opprobrium for the loosest 
female characters. 

Squire Griffiths easily tracked Owen to Ty Glas; and, 
without any aim but the gratification of his furious anger, 
followed him to upbraid him as we have seen. But he left 
the cottage even more enraged against his son than he had 
entered it, and returned home to hear the evil suggestions of 
the stepmother. He had heard a slight scuffle in which he 
caught the tones of Robert’s voice, as he passed along the 
hall, and an instant afterwards he saw the apparently life- 
less body of his little favourite dragged along by the culprit 
Owen — the marks of strong passion yet visible on his face. 
Not loud, but bitter and deep, were the evil words which the 
father bestowed on the son ; and, as Owen stood proudly and 
sullenly silent, disdaining all exculpation of himself in the 
presence of one who had wrought him so much graver — so 
fatal an injury — Robert’s mother entered the room. At sight 
of her natural emotion the wrath of the Squire was redoubled, 
and his wild suspicions that this violence of Owen’s to 
Robert was a premeditated act appeared like the proven 
truth through the mists of rage. He summoned domestics, 
as if to guard his own and his wife’s life from the attempts 
of his son ; and the servants stood wondering around — now 
gazing at Mrs. Griffiths, alternately scolding and sobbing, 
while she tried to restore the lad from his really bruised and 
half-unconscious state ; now at the fierce and angry Squire ; 
and now at the sad and silent Owen. And he — he was 
hardly aware of their looks of wonder and terror ; his father’s 
words fell on a deadened ear ; for before his eyes there rose 
a pale dead babe, and in that lady’s violent sounds of grief 
he heard the wailing of a more sad, more hopeless mother. 
For by this time the lad Robert had opened his eyes, and, 
though evidently suffering a good deal from the effects of 
Owen’s blows, was fully conscious of all that was passing 
around him. 


266 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

Had Owen been left to bis own nature, his heart would 
have worked itself to love doubly the boy whom he had 
injured ; but he was stubborn from injustice, and hardened 
by suffering. He refused to vindicate himself ; he made no 
effort to resist the imprisonment the Squire had decreed, 
until a surgeon’s opinion of the real extent of Eobert’s 
injuries was made known. It was not until the door was 
locked and barred, as if upon some wild and furious beast, 
that the recollection of poor Nest, without his comforting 
presence, came into his mind. Oh ! thought he, how she 
would be wearying, pining for his tender sympathy ; if, 
indeed, she had recovered from the shock of mind sufficiently 
to be sensible of consolation ! What would she think of his 
absence ? Could she imagine he believed his father’s words, 
and had left her in this her sore trouble and bereavement ? 
The thought maddened him, and he looked around for some 
mode of escape. 

He had been confined in a small unfurnished room on 
the first floor, wainscoted, and carved all round, with a 
massy door, calculated to resist the attempts of a dozen 
strong men, even had he afterward been able to escape from 
the house unseen, unheard. The window was placed (as is 
common in old Welsh houses) over the fireplace ; with 
branching chimneys on either hand, forming a sort of pro- 
jection on the outside. By this outlet his escape was easy, 
even had he been less determined and desperate than he 
was. And when he had descended, with a little care, a little 
winding, he might elude all observation and pursue his 
original intention of going to Ty Glas. 

The storm had abated, and watery sunbeams were gilding 
the bay, as Owen descended from the window, and, stealing 
along in the broad afternoon shadows, made his way to the 
little plateau of green turf in the garden at the top of a steep 
precipitous rock, down the abrupt face of which he had often 
dropped, by means of a well-secured rope, into the small 
sailing- boat (his father’s present, alas ! in days gone by) 
which lay moored in the deep sea-water below. He had 

267 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

always kept kis boat there, because it was the nearest avail- 
able spot to the house ; but before be could reach the place — 
unless, indeed, be crossed a broad sun-lighted piece of ground 
in full view of the windows on that side of the bouse, and 
without the shadow of a single sheltering tree or shrub — he 
had to skirt round a rude semicircle of underwood, which 
would have been considered as a shrubbery, had any one 
taken pains with it. Step by step he stealthily moved along 
— hearing voices now ; again seeing his father and stepmother 
in no distant walk, the Squire evidently caressing and con- 
soling his wife, who seemed to be urging some point with 
great vehemence ; again forced to crouch down to avoid being 
seen by the cook, returning from the rude kitchen-garden 
with a handful of herbs. This was the way the doomed heir 
of Bodowen left his ancestral house for ever, and hoped to 
leave behind him his doom. At length he reached the 
plateau — he breathed more freely. He stooped to discover 
the hidden coil of rope, kept safe and dry in a hole under a 
great round flat piece of rock ; his head was bent down ; he 
did not see his father approach, nor did he hear his footstep 
for the rush of blood to his head in the stooping effort of 
lifting the stone. The Squire had grappled with him before 
he rose up again, before he fully knew whose hands detained 
him, now, when his liberty of person and action seemed 
secure. He made a vigorous struggle to free himself ; he 
wrestled with his father for a moment — he pushed him hard, 
and drove him on to the great displaced stone, all unsteady 
in its balance. 

Down went the Squire, down into the deep waters below 
— down after him went Owen, half consciously, half uncon- 
sciously ; partly compelled by the sudden cessation of any 
opposing body, partly from a vehement irrepressible impulse 
to rescue his father. But he had instinctively chosen a safer 
place in the deep sea-water pool than that into which his 
push had sent his father. The Squire had hit his head with 
much violence against the side of the boat, in his fall ; it is, 
indeed, doubtful whether he was not killed before ever he 

268 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

sank into the sea. But Owen knew nothing save that the 
awful doom seemed even now present. He plunged down ; 
he dived below the water in search of the body, which had 
none of the elasticity of life to buoy it up ; he saw his father 
in those depths ; he clutched at him ; he brought him up and 
cast him, a dead weight, into the boat ; and, exhausted by the 
effort, he had begun himself to sink again before he instinc- 
tively strove to rise and climb into the rocking boat. There 
lay his father, with a deep dent in the side of his head where 
the skull had been fractured by his fall ; his face blackened 
by the arrested course of the blood. Owen felt his pulse, 
his heart — all was still. He called him by his name. 

“ Father, father ! ” he cried, “ come back ! come back ! 
You never knew how I loved you ! how I could love you 
still— if— Oh, God ! ” 

And the thought of his little child rose before him. “ Yes, 
father,” he cried afresh, “ you never knew how he fell — how 
he died ! Oh, if I had but had patience to tell you ! If you 
would but have borne with me and listened ! And now it is 
over ! Oh, father ! father ! ” 

Whether she had heard this wild wailing voice, or whether 
it was only that she missed her husband and wanted him for 
some little every-day question, or, as was perhaps more 
likely, she had discovered Owen’s escape, and come to inform 
her husband of it, I do not know — but on the rock, right 
above his head, as it seemed, Owen heard his stepmother 
calling her husband. 

He was silent, and softly pushed the boat right under the 
rock till the sides grated against the stones ; and the over- 
hanging branches concealed him and it from all on a level 
with the water. Wet as he was, he lay down by his dead 
father, the better to conceal himself ; and, somehow, the 
action recalled those early days of childhood — the first in the 
Squire’s widowhood — when Owen had shared his father’s 
bed, and used to waken him in the morning in order to 
hear one of the old Welsh legends. How long he lay thus — 
body chilled, and brain hard-working through the heavy 

269 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

pressure of a reality as terrible as a nightmare — he never 
knew; but at length he roused himself up to think of Nest. 

Drawing out a great sail, he covered up the body of his 
father with it where he lay in the bottom of the boat. Then 
with his numbed hands he took the oars, and pulled out into 
the more open sea toward Criccaeth. He skirted along the 
coast till he found a shadowed cleft in the dark rocks ; to 
that point he rowed, and anchored his boat close inland. 
Then he mounted, staggering, half longing to fall into the 
dark waters and be at rest — half instinctively finding out the 
surest foot-rests on that precipitous face of rock, till he was 
high up, safe landed on the turfy summit. He ran off, as if 
pursued, towards Penmorfa ; he ran with maddened energy. 
Suddenly he paused, turned, ran again with the same speed, 
and threw himself prone on the summit, looking down into 
his boat with straining eyes to see if there had been any 
movement of life — any displacement of a fold of sail-cloth. 
It was all quiet deep down below, but as he gazed the shift- 
ing light gave the appearance of a slight movement. Owen 
ran to a lower part of the rock, stripped, plunged into the 
water, and swam to the boat. When there, all was still — 
awfully still ! For a minute or two, he dared not lift up the 
cloth. Then, reflecting that the same terror might beset him 
again — of leaving his father unaided while yet a spark of life 
lingered — he removed the shrouding cover. The eyes looked 
into his with a dead stare ! He closed the lids and bound 
up the jaw. Again he looked. This time, he raised himself 
out of the water and kissed the brow. 

“ It was my doom, father ! It would have been better if 
I had died at my birth ! ” 

Daylight was fading away. Precious daylight ! He 
swam back, dressed, and set off afresh for Penmorfa. 
When he opened the door of Ty Glas, Ellis Pritchard 
looked at him reproachfully from his seat in the darkly- 
shadowed chimney-corner. 

“ You’re come at last,” said he. “ One of our kind” ( i.e ., 
station) “ would not have left his wife to mourn by herself 

270 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

over her dead child ; nor would one of our kind have let his 
father kill his own true son. I’ve a good mind to take her 
from you for ever.” 

“ I did not tell him,” cried Nest, looking piteously at 
her husband ; “he made me tell him part, and guessed 
the rest.” 

She was nursing her babe on her knee as if it was alive. 
Owen stood before Ellis Pritchard. 

“ Be silent,” said he quietly. “ Neither words nor deeds 
but what are decreed can come to pass. I was set to do 
my work, this hundred years and more. The time waited 
for me, and the man waited for me. I have done what was 
foretold of me for generations ! ” 

Ellis Pritchard knew the old tale of the prophecy, and 
believed in it in a dull, dead kind of way, but somehow never 
thought it would come to pass in his time. Now, however, 
he understood it all in a moment, though he mistook Owen’s 
nature so much as to believe that the deed was intentionally 
done, out of revenge for the death of his boy ; and, viewing 
it in this light, Ellis thought it little more than a just 
punishment for the cause of all the wild despairing sorrow 
he had seen his only child suffer during the hours of this 
long afternoon. But he knew the law would not so regard 
it. Even the lax Welsh law of those days could not fail to 
examine into the death of a man of Squire Griffiths’ standing. 
So the acute Ellis thought how he could conceal the culprit 
for a time. 

“ Come,” said he ; “ don’t look so scared ! It was your 
doom, not your fault ; ” and he laid a hand on Owen’s 
shoulder. 

“ You’re wet,” said he suddenly. “ Where have you 
been ? Nest, your husband is dripping, drookit wet. That’s 
what makes him look so blue and wan.” 

Nest softly laid her baby in its cradle ; she was half 
stupefied with crying, and had not understood to what Owen 
alluded, when he spoke of his doom being fulfilled, if indeed 
she had heard the words. 


271 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

Her touch thawed Owen’s miserable heart. 

“ Oh, Nest ! ” said he, clasping her in his arms ; “do 
you love me still — can you love me, my own darling ? ” 

“ Why not ? ” asked she, her eyes filling with tears. “ I 
only love you more than ever, for you were my poor baby’s 
father ! ” 

“ But, Nest Oh, tell her, Ellis ! you know.” 

“ No need, no need ! ” said Ellis. “ She’s had enough 
to think on. Bustle, my girl, and get out my Sunday 
clothes.” 

“ I don’t understand,” said Nest, putting her hand up 
to her head. “ What is to tell ? and why are you so wet ? 
God help me for a poor crazed thing ; for I cannot guess at 
the meaning of your words and your strange looks ! I only 
know my baby is dead ! ” and she burst into tears. 

“ Come, Nest ! go and fetch him a change, quick ! ” and, 
as she meekly obeyed, too languid to strive further to 
understand, Ellis said rapidly to Owen, in a low, hurried 
voice — 

“ Are you meaning that the Squire is dead ? Speak low, 
lest she hear? Well, well, no need to talk about how he 
died. It was sudden, I see ; and we must all of us die ; 
and he’ll have to be buried. It’s well the night is near. 
And I should not wonder now if you’d like to travel for a 
bit ; it would do Nest a power of good ; and then — there’s 
many a one goes out of his own house and never comes 
back again ; and — I trust he’s not lying in his own house — 
and there’s a stir for a bit, and a search, and a wonder — and, 
by-and-by, the heir just steps in, as quiet as can be. And 
that’s what you’ll do, and bring Nest to Bodowen after all. 
Nay, child, better stockings nor those ; find the blue woollens 
I bought at Llanrwst fair. Only don’t lose heart. It’s done 
now and can’t be helped. It was the piece of work set you 
to do from the days of the Tudors, they say. And he 
deserved it. Look in yon cradle. So tell us where he is, 
and I’ll take heart of grace and see what can be done 
for him.” 


272 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

But Owen sat wet and haggard, looking into the peat 
fire as if for visions of the past, and never heeding a word 
Ellis said. Nor did he move when Nest brought the armful 
of dry clothes. 

“ Come, rouse up, man! ” said Ellis, growing impatient. 

But he neither spoke nor moved. 

“ What is the matter, father ? ” asked Nest, bewildered. 

Ellis kept on watching Owen for a minute or two, till on 
his daughter’s repetition of the question, he said — 

“ Ask him yourself, Nest.” 

“Oh, husband, what is it?” said she, kneeling down 
and bringing her face to a level with his. 

“ Don’t you know ? ” said he heavily. “ You won’t love 
me when you do know. And yet it was not my doing : it 
was my doom.” 

“ What does he mean, father ? ” asked Nest, looking up ; 
but she caught a gesture from Ellis urging her to go on 
questioning her husband. 

“ I will love you, husband, whatever has happened. 
Only let me know the worst.” 

A pause, during which Nest and Ellis hung breathless. 

“ My father is dead, Nest.” 

Nest caught her breath with a sharp gasp. 

“ God forgive him ! ” said she, thinking on her babe. 

“ God forgive me ! ” said Owen. 

“ You did not ” Nest stopped. 

“ Yes, I did. Now you know it. It was my doom. 
How could I help it? The devil helped me — he placed 
the stone so that my father fell. I jumped into the water 
to save him. I did, indeed, Nest. I was nearly drowned 
myself. But he was dead— dead — killed by the fall ! ” 

“ Then he is safe at the bottom of the sea ? ” said Ellis, 
with hungry eagerness. 

“ No, he is not ; he lies in my boat,” said Owen, shiver- 
ing a little, more at the thought of his last glimpse at his 
father’s face than from cold. 

“ Oh, husband, change your wet clothes ! ” pleaded Nest, 
273 T 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

to whom the death of the old man was simply a horror 
with which she had nothing to do, while her husband’s 
discomfort was a present trouble. 

While she helped him to take off the wet garments 
which he would never have had energy enough to remove 
of himself, Ellis was busy preparing food, and mixing a 
great tumbler of spirits and hot water. He stood over the 
unfortunate young man and compelled him to eat and 
drink, and made Nest, too, taste some mouthfuls — all the 
while planning in his own mind how best to conceal what 
had been done, and who had done it ; not altogether with- 
out a certain feeling of vulgar triumph in the reflection 
that Nest, as she stood there, carelessly dressed, dishevelled 
in her grief, was in reality the mistress of Bodowen, than 
which Ellis Pritchard had never seen a grander house, 
though he believed such might exist. 

By dint of a few dexterous questions he found out all 
he wanted to know from Owen, as he ate and drank. In 
fact, it was almost a relief to Owen to dilute the horror 
by talking about it. Before the meal was done, if meal 
it could be called, Ellis knew all he cared to know. 

“ Now, Nest, on with your cloak and haps. Pack up 
what needs to go with you, for both you and your husband 
must be half-way to Liverpool by to-morrow’s mom. I’ll 
take you past Rhyl Sands in my fishing-boat, with yours 
in tow ; and, once over the dangerous part, I’ll return with 
my cargo of fish, and learn how much stir there is at 
Bodowen. Once safe hidden in Liverpool, no one will 
know where you are, and you may stay quiet till your 
time comes for returning.” 

“ I will never come home again,” said Owen doggedly. 
“ The place is accursed ! ” 

“ Hoot ! be guided by me, man. Why, it was but an 
accident, after all ! And we’ll land at the Holy Island, at 
the Point of Llyn; there is an old cousin of mine, the 
parson, there — for the Pritchards have known better days, 
Squire — and we’ll bury him there. It was but an accident, 

274 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

man. Hold up your head ! You and Nest will come home 
yet and fill Bodowen with children, and I’ll live to see it.” 

“ Never ! ” said Owen. “ I am the last male of my race, 
and the son has murdered his father ! ” 

Nest came in laden and cloaked. Ellis was for hurrying 
them off. The fire was extinguished, the door was locked. 

“ Here, Nest, my darling, let me take your bundle while 
I guide you down the steps.” But her husband bent his 
head, and spoke never a word. Nest gave her father the 
bundle (already loaded with such things as he himself had 
seen fit to take), but clasped another softly and tightly. 

“No one shall help me with this,” said she, in a low 
voice. 

Her father did not understand her; her husband did, 
and placed his strong helping arm round her waist, and 
blessed her. 

“We will all go together, Nest,” said he. “ But where ? ” 
and he looked up at the storm- tossed clouds coming up from 
windward. 

“It is a dirty night,” said Ellis, turning his head round 
to speak to his companions at last. “ But never fear, we’ll 
weather it.” And he made for the place where his vessel 
was moored. Then he stopped and thought a moment. 

“ Stay here ! ” said he, addressing his companions. “ I 
may meet folk, and I shall, maybe, have to hear and to 
speak. You wait here till I come back for you.” So they 
sat down close together in a comer of the path. 

“ Let me look at him, Nest ! ” said Owen. 

She took her little dead son out from under her shawl ; 
they looked at his waxen face long and tenderly ; kissed it, 
and covered it up reverently and softly. 

“ Nest,” said Owen, at last, “ I feel as though my father’s 
spirit had been near us, and as if it had bent over our poor 
little one. A strange, chilly air met me as I stooped over 
him. I could fancy the spirit of our pure, blameless child 
guiding my father’s safe over the paths of the sky to the 
gates of heaven, and escaping those accursed dogs of hell 

275 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

that were darting up from the north in pursuit of souls not 
five minutes since.” 

“ Don’t talk so, Owen,” said Nest, curling up to him 
in the darkness of the copse. “ Who knows what may be 
listening ? ” 

The pair were silent, in a kind of nameless terror, till 
they heard Ellis Pritchard’s loud whisper. “ Where are ye ? 
Come along, soft and steady. There were folk about even 
now, and the Squire is missed, and madam in a fright.” 

They went swiftly down to the little harbour, and em- 
barked on board Ellis’s boat. The sea heaved and rocked 
even there ; the torn clouds went hurrying overhead in a wild 
tumultuous manner. 

They put out into the bay ; still in silence, except when 
some word of command was spoken by Ellis, who took the 
management of the vessel. They made for the rocky shore, 
where Owen’s boat had been moored. It was not there. It 
had broken loose and disappeared. 

Owen sat down and covered his face. This last event, so 
simple and natural in itself, struck on his excited and super- 
stitious mind in an extraordinary manner. He had hoped 
for a certain reconciliation, so to say, by laying his father 
and his child both in one grave. But now it appeared to him 
as if there was to be no forgiveness ; as if his father revolted 
even in death against any such peaceful union. Ellis took a 
practical view of the case. If the Squire’s body was found 
drifting about in a boat known to belong to his son, it would 
create terrible suspicion as to the manner of his death. At 
one time in the evening, Ellis had thought of persuading 
Owen to let him bury the Squire in a sailor’s grave ; or, in 
other words, to sew him up in a spare sail, and, weighting it 
well, sink it for ever. He had not broached the subject, 
from a certain fear of Owen’s passionate repugnance to the 
plan; otherwise, if he had consented, they might have 
returned to Penmorfa, and passively awaited the course of 
events, secure of Owen’s succession to Bodowen, sooner or 
later ; or, if Owen w'as too much overwhelmed by what had 

276 


The Doom of the Griffiths 

happened, Ellis would have advised him to go away for a 
short time, and return when the buzz and the talk was 
over. 

Now it was different. It was absolutely necessary that 
they should leave the country for a time. Through those 
stormy waters they must plough their way that very night. 
Ellis had no fear — would have had no fear, at any rate, with 
Owen as he had been a week, a day ago ; but with Owen 
wild, despairing, helpless, fate-pursued, what could he do ? 

They sailed into the tossing darkness, and were never 
more seen of men. 

The house of Bodowen has sunk into damp, dark ruins ; 
and a Saxon stranger holds the lands of the Griffiths. 


You cannot think how kindly Mrs. Dawson thanked Miss 
Duncan for writing and reading this story. She shook my 
poor, pale governess so tenderly by the hand that the tears 
came into her eyes, and the colour into her cheeks. 

“ I thought you had been so kind; I liked hearing about 
Lady Ludlow ; I fancied, perhaps, I could do something to 
give a little pleasure,” were the half -finished sentences Miss 
Duncan stammered out. I am sure it was the wish to earn 
similar kind words from Mrs. Dawson, that made Mrs. 
Preston try and rummage through her memory to see if she 
could not recollect some fact, or event, or history, which 
might interest Mrs. Dawson and the little party that gathered 
round her sofa. Mrs. Preston it was who told us the following 
tale — 

“ Half a Lifetime ago.” 


277 


HALF A LIFETIME AGO 


CHAPTER I 

Half a lifetime ago, there lived in one of the Westmoreland 
dales a single woman, of the name of Susan Dixon. She 
was owner of the small farmhouse where she resided, and 
of some thirty or forty acres of land by which it was sur- 
rounded. She had also an hereditary right to a sheep-walk, 
extending to the wild fells that overhang Blea Tarn. In 
the language of the country she was a Stateswoman. Her 
house is yet to be seen on the Oxenfell road, between Skel- 
with and Coniston. You go along a moorland track, made 
by the carts that occasionally come for turf from Oxenfell. 
A brook babbles and brattles by the wayside, giving you a 
sense of companionship, which relieves the deep solitude in 
which this way is usually traversed. Some miles on this 
side of Coniston there is a farmstead — a grey stone house, 
and a square of farm -buildings surrounding a green space of 
rough turf, in the midst of which stands a mighty, funereal 
umbrageous yew, making a solemn shadow, as of death, in 
the very heart and centre of the light and heat of the brightest 
summer day. On the side away from the house, this yard 
slopes down to a dark- brown pool, whi6h is supplied with 
fresh water from the overflowings of a stone cistern, into 
which some rivulet of the brook before-mentioned continually 
and melodiously falls bubbling. The cattle drink out of this 
cistern. The household bring their pitchers and fill them 
with drinking-water by a dilatory, yet pretty, process. The 
water-carrier brings with her a leaf of the hound’s-tongue 

278 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

fern, and, inserting it in the crevice of the grey rock, makes 
a cool, green spont for the sparkling stream. 

The house is no specimen, at the present day, of what it 
was in the lifetime of Susan Dixon. Then, every small 
diamond pane in the windows glittered with cleanliness. 
You might have eaten off the floor ; you could see yourself 
in the pewter plates and the polished oaken awmry, or 
dresser, of the state kitchen into which you entered. Few 
strangers penetrated further than this room. Once or twice, 
wandering tourists, attracted by the lonely picturesqueness 
of the situation, and the exquisite cleanliness of the house 
itself, made their way into this house-place, and offered 
money enough (as they thought) to tempt the hostess to 
receive them as lodgers. They would give no trouble, they 
said ; they would be out rambling or sketching all day long ; 
would be perfectly content with a share of the food which 
she provided for herself ; or would procure what they required 
from the Waterhead Inn at Coniston. But no liberal sum — 
no fair words — moved her from her stony manner, or her 
monotonous tone of indifferent refusal. No persuasion could 
induce her to show any more of the house than that first 
room ; no appearance of fatigue procured for the weary an 
invitation to sit down and rest ; and, if one more bold and 
less delicate did so without being asked, Susan stood by, 
cold and apparently deaf, or only replying by the briefest 
monosyllables, till the unwelcome visitor had departed. 
Yet those with whom she had dealings, in the way of selling 
her cattle or her farm produce, spoke of her as keen after a 
bargain — a hard one to have to do with ; and she never 
spared herself exertion or fatigue, at market or in the field, 
to make the most of her produce. She led the hay-makers 
with her swift, steady rake, and her noiseless evenness of 
motion. She was about among the earliest in the market, 
examining samples of oats, pricing them, and then turning 
with grim satisfaction to her own cleaner corn. 

She was served faithfully and long by those who were 
rather her fellow-labourers than her servants. She was 

279 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

even and just in her dealings with them. If she was peculiar 
and silent, they knew her, and knew that she might be relied 
on. Some of them had known her from her childhood ; and 
deep in their hearts was an unspoken — almost unconscious 
— pity for her, for they knew her story, though they never 
spoke of it. 

Yes ; the time had been when that tall, gaunt, hard- 
featured, angular woman — who never smiled, and hardly 
ever spoke an unnecessary word— had been a fine-looking 
girl, bright-spirited and rosy ; and when the hearth at the 
Yew Nook had been as bright as she, with family love and 
youthful hope and mirth. Fifty or fifty- one years ago, 
William Dixon and his wife Margaret were alive, and Susan, 
their daughter, was about eighteen years old — ten years 
older than the only other child, a boy named after his father. 
William and Margaret Dixon were rather superior people, of 
a character belonging — as far as I have seen — exclusively to 
the class of Westmoreland and Cumberland statesmen — just, 
independent, upright ; not given to much speaking ; kind- 
hearted, but not demonstrative ; disliking change, and new 
ways, and new people ; sensible and shrewd ; each house- 
hold self-contained, and its members having little curiosity 
as to their neighbours, with whom they rarely met for any 
social intercourse, save at the stated times of sheep- shearing 
and Christmas ; having a certain kind of sober pleasure in 
amassing money, which occasionally made them miserable 
(as they call miserly people up in the north) in their old 
age ; reading no light or ephemeral literature, but the grave, 
solid books brought round by the pedlars (such as “ Para- 
dise Lost ” and “ Regained,” “ The Death of Abel,” “ The 
Spiritual Quixote,” and “ The Pilgrim’s Progress ”), which 
were to be found in nearly every house : the men occasion- 
ally going off laking, i.e. playing, i.e. drinking, for days to- 
gether, and having to be hunted up by anxious wives, who 
dared not leave their husbands to the chances of the wild 
precipitous roads, but walked miles and miles, lantern in 
hand, in the dead of night, to discover and guide the 

280 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

solemnly-drunken husband home ; who had a dreadful head- 
ache the next day, and the day after that came forth as grave, 
and sober, and virtuous-looking as if there were no such thing 
as malt and spirituous liquors in the world ; and who were 
seldom reminded of their misdoings by their wives, to whom 
such occasional outbreaks were as things of course, when 
once the immediate anxiety produced by them was over. 
Such were — such are — the characteristics of a class now 
passing away from the face of the land, as their compeers, 
the yeomen, have done before them. Of such was William 
Dixon. He was a shrewd, clever farmer, in his day and 
generation, when shrewdness was rather shown in the breed- 
ing and rearing of sheep and cattle than in the cultivation 
of land. Owing to this character of his, statesmen from a 
distance from beyond Kendal, or from Borrowdale, of greater 
wealth than he, would send their sons to be farm-servants 
for a year or two with him, in order to learn some of his 
methods before setting up on land of their own. When 
. Susan, his daughter, was about seventeen, one Michael 
Hurst was farm-servant at Yew Nook. He worked with 
the master, and lived with the family, and was in all respects 
treated as an equal, except in the field. His father was a 
wealthy statesman at Wythburne, up beyond Grasmere; 
and through Michael’s servitude the families had become 
acquainted, and the Dixons went over to the High Beck 
sheep-shearing, and the Hursts came down by Bed Bank 
and Loughrig Tarn and across the Oxenfell when there was 
the Christmas-tide feasting at Yew Nook. The fathers 
strolled round the fields together, examined cattle and sheep, 
and looked knowing over each other’s horses. The mothers 
inspected the dairies and household arrangements, each openly 
admiring the plans of the other, but secretly preferring their 
own. Both fathers and mothers cast a glance from time to 
time at Michael and Susan, who were thinking of nothing 
less than farm or dairy, but whose unspoken attachment 
was, in all ways, so suitable, and natural a thing that each 
parent rejoiced over it, although with characteristic reserve 

281 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

it was never spoken about — not even between husband 
and wife. 

Susan had been a strong, independent, healthy girl; a 
clever help to her mother, and a spirited companion to her 
father ; more of a man in her (as he often said) than her 
delicate little brother ever would have. He was his mother’s 
darling, although she loved Susan well. There was no 
positive engagement between Michael and Susan — I doubt 
whether even plain words of love had been spoken ; when, 
one winter-time, Margaret Dixon was seized with inflamma- 
tion consequent upon a neglected cold. She had always 
been strong and notable, and had been too busy to attend to 
the early symptoms of illness. It would go off, she said to 
the woman who helped in the kitchen ; or, if she did not feel 
better when they had got the hams and bacon out of hand, 
she would take some herb-tea and nurse up a bit. But 
Death could not wait till the hams and bacon were cured : 
he came on with rapid strides, and shooting arrows of 
portentous agony. Susan had never seen illness — never 
knew how much she loved her mother till now, when she 
felt a dreadful, instinctive certainty that she was losing her. 
Her mind was thronged with recollections of the many 
times she had slighted her mother’s wishes ; her heart was 
full of the echoes of careless and angry replies that she 
had spoken. What would she not now give to have 
opportunities of service and obedience, and trials of her 
patience and love, for that dear mother who lay gasping in 
torture ! And yet Susan had been a good girl and an 
affectionate daughter. 

The sharp pain went off, and delicious ease came on ; yet 
still her mother sank. In the midst of this languid peace 
she was dying. She motioned Susan to her bedside, for she 
could only whisper ; and then, while the father was out of 
the room, she spoke as much to the eager, hungering eyes of 
her daughter by the motion of her lips, as by the slow, feeble 
sounds of her voice. 

“ Susan, lass, thou must not fret. It is God’s will, and 
282 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

thou wilt have a deal to do. Keep father straight if thou 
canst ; and, if he goes out Ulverstone ways, see that thou 
meet him before he gets to the Old Quarry. It’s a dree bit 
for a man who has had a drop. As for lile Will ” — here the 
poor woman’s face began to work and her fingers to move 
nervously as they lay on the bed-quilt — “ lile Will will miss 
me most of all. Father’s often vexed with him because he’s 
not a quick strong lad : he is not, my poor lile chap. And 
father thinks he’s saucy, because he cannot always stomach 
oat-cake and porridge. There’s better than three pound in 
th’ old black tea-pot on the top shelf of the cupboard. Just 
keep a piece of loaf-bread by you, Susan dear, for Will to 
come to when he’s not taken his breakfast. I have, maybe, 
spoilt him ; but there’ll be no one to spoil him now.” 

She began to cry, a low, feeble cry, and covered up her 
face that Susan might not see her. That dear face ! those 
precious moments, while yet the eyes could look out with love 
and intelligence ! Susan laid her head down close by her 
mother’s ear. 

“ Mother, I’ll take tent of Will. Mother, do you hear ? 
He shall not want aught I can give or get for him, least of 
all the kind words which you had ever ready for us both. 
Bless you ! bless you ! my own mother.” 

“ Thou’lt promise me that, Susan, wilt thou ? I can die 
easy if thou’lt take charge of him. But he’s hardly like 
other folk ; he tries father at times, though I think father’ll 
be tender of him when I’m gone, for my sake. And, Susan, 
there’s one thing more. I never spoke on it for fear of the 
bairn being called a tell-tale, but I just comforted him up. 
He vexes Michael at times, and Michael has struck him 
before now. I did not want to make a stir ; but he’s not 
strong, and a word from thee, Susan, will go a long way 
with Michael.” 

Susan was as red now as . she had been pale before ; it 
was the first time that her influence over Michael had been 
openly acknowledged by a third person, and a flash of joy 
came athwart the solemn sadness of the moment. Her 

283 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

mother had spoken too much, and now came on the 
miserable faintness. She never spoke again coherently ; but 
when her children and her husband stood by her bedside 
she took lile Will’s hand and put it into Susan’s, and looked 
at her with imploring eyes. Susan clasped her arms round 
Will, and leaned her head upon his little curly one, and 
vowed within herself to be as a mother to him. 

Henceforward she was all in all to her brother. She was 
a more spirited and amusing companion to him than his 
mother had been, from her greater activity, and perhaps, 
also, from her originality of character, which often prompted 
her to perform her habitual actions in some new and racy 
manner. She was tender to lile Will when she was prompt 
and sharp with everybody else — with Michael most of all ; 
for somehow the girl felt that, unprotected by her mother, 
she must keep up her own dignity, and not allow her lover 
to see how strong a hold he had upon her heart. He called 
her hard and cruel, and felt her so ; and she smiled softly to 
herself, when his back was turned, to think how little he 
guessed how deeply he was loved. For Susan was merely 
comely and fine-looking ; Michael was strikingly handsome, 
admired by all the girls for miles round, and quite enough of 
a country coxcomb to know it and plume himself accord- 
ingly. He was the second son of his father ; the eldest 
would have High Beck farm, of course, but there was a good 
penny in the Kendal bank in store for Michael. When 
harvest was over, he went to Chapel Langdale to learn 
to dance ; and at night, in his merry moods, he would 
do his steps on the flag floor of the Yew Nook kitchen, to 
the secret admiration of Susan, who had never learned 
dancing, but who flouted him perpetually, even while she 
admired, in accordance with the rule she seemed to have made 
for herself about keeping him at a distance so long as he 
lived under the same roof with her. One evening he sulked 
at some saucy remark of hers ; he sitting in the chimney- 
corner with his arms on his knees, and his head bent 
forwards, lazily gazing into the wood-fire on the hearth, and 

284 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

luxuriating in rest after a hard day’s labour; she sitting 
among the geraniums on the long, low window- seat, trying 
to catch the last slanting rays of the autumnal light to 
enable her to finish stitching a shirt-collar for Will, who 
lounged full length on the flags at the other side of the 
hearth to Michael, poking the burning wood from time to 
time with a long hazel-stick to bring out the leap of glittering 
sparks. 

“ And if you can dance a threesome reel, what good does 
it do ye ? ” asked Susan, looking askance at Michael, who 
had just been vaunting his proficiency. “ Does it help you 
plough, or reap, or even climb the rocks to take a raven’s 
nest ? If I were a man, I’d be ashamed to give in to such 
softness.” 

“ If you were a man, you’d be glad to do anything which 
made the pretty girls stand round and admire.” 

“ As they do to you, eh ? Ho, Michael, that would not 
be my way o’ being a man ! ” 

“ What would, then ? ” asked he, after a pause, during 
which he had expected in vain that she would go on with 
her sentence. No answer. 

“ I should not like you as a man, Susy ; you’d be too 
hard and headstrong.” 

“ Am I hard and headstrong ? ” asked she, with as 
indifferent a tone as she could assume, but which yet 
had a touch of pique in it. His quick ear detected the 
inflection. 

“ No, Susy ! You’re wilful at times, and that’s right 
enough. I don’t like a girl without spirit. There’s a mighty 
pretty girl comes to the dancing-class ; but she is all milk 
and water. Her eyes never flash like yours when you’re 
put out ; why, I can see them flame across the kitchen like 
a cat’s in the dark. Now, if you were a man, I should feel 
queer before those looks of yours ; as it is, I rather like 
them, because” 

“ Because what ? ” asked she, looking up and perceiving 
that he had stolen close up to her. 

285 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

“ Because I can make all right in this way,” said he, 
kissing her suddenly. 

“ Can you ? ” said she, wrenching herself out of his grasp, 
and panting, half with rage. “ Take that, by way of proof 
that making right is none so easy.” And she boxed his ears 
pretty sharply. He went back to his seat discomfited and 
out of temper. She could no longer see to look, even if her 
face had not burnt and her eyes dazzled; but she did not 
choose to move her seat, so she still preserved her stooping 
attitude and pretended to go on sewing. 

“ Eleanor Hebthwaite may be milk-and-water,” muttered 
he, “ but — Confound thee, lad ! what art thou doing ? ” ex- 
claimed Michael, as a great piece of burning wood was cast 
into his face by an unlucky poke of Will’s. “ Thou great 
lounging, clumsy chap, I’ll teach thee better ! ” and with one 
or two good round kicks he sent the lad whimpering away 
into the back-kitchen. When he had a little recovered him- 
self from his passion, he saw Susan standing before him, her 
face looking strange and almost ghastly by the reversed 
position of the shadows, arising from the firelight shining 
upwards right under it. 

“ I tell thee what, Michael,” said she, “ that lad’s mother- 
less, but not friendless.” 

“ His own father leathers him, and why should not I, 
when he’s given me such a burn on my face ? ” said Michael, 
putting up his hand to his cheek as if in pain. 

“ His father’s his father, and there is nought more to be 
said. But if he did burn thee, it was by accident, and not o’ 
purpose, as thou kicked him ; it’s a mercy if his ribs are not 
broken.” 

“ He howls loud enough, I’m sure. I might ha’ kicked 
many a lad twice as hard, and they’d ne’er ha’ said ought 
but ‘ damn ye ; ’ but yon lad must needs cry out like a stuck 
pig if one touches him ; ” replied Michael sullenly. 

Susan went back to the window-seat, and looked absently 
out of the window at the drifting clouds for a minute or two, 
while her eyes filled with tears. Then she got up and made 

286 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

for the outer door which led into the back-kitchen. Before 
she reached it, however, she heard a low voice, whose music 
made her thrill, say — 

“ Susan, Susan ! ” 

Her heart melted within her, but it seemed like treachery 
to her poor boy, like faithlessness to her dead mother, to 
turn to her lover while the tears which he had caused to flow 
were yet unwiped on Will’s cheeks. So she seemed to take 
no heed, but passed into the darkness, and, guided by the 
sobs, she found her way to where Willie sat crouched among 
the disused tubs and churns. 

“ Come out wi’ me, lad ; ” and they went out into the 
orchard, where the fruit-trees were bare of leaves, but ghastly 
in their tattered covering of grey moss ; and the soughing 
November wind came with long sweeps over the fells till it 
rattled among the crackling boughs, underneath which the 
brother and sister sat in the dark ; he in her lap, and she 
hushing his head against her shoulder. 

“ Thou should’st na’ play wi’ fire. It’s a naughty 
trick. Thou’lt suffer for it in worse ways nor this before 
thou’st done, I’m af eared. I should ha’ hit thee twice 
as lungeous kicks as Mike, if I’d been in his place. He 
did na’ hurt thee, I am sure,” she assumed, half as a 
question. 

“ Yes, but he did. He turned me quite sick.” And he 
let his head fall languidly down on his sister’s breast. 

“Come, lad! come, lad!” said she anxiously. “Be a 
man. It was not much that I saw. Why, when first the 
red cow came she kicked me far harder for offering to milk 
her before her legs were tied. See thee ! here’s a pepper- 
mint-drop, and I’ll make thee a pasty to-night ; only don’t 
give way so, for it hurts me sore to think that Michael has 
done thee any harm, my pretty.” 

Willie roused himself up, and put back the wet and 
ruffled hair from his heated face ; and he and Susan rose up, 
and hand-in-hand went towards the house, walking slowly 
and quietly except for a kind of sob which Willie could not 

287 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

repress. Susan took him to the pump and washed his tear- 
stained face, till she thought she had obliterated all traces of 
the recent disturbance, arranging his curls for him ; and then 
she kissed him tenderly, and led him in, hoping to find 
Michael in the kitchen, and make all straight between them. 
But the blaze had dropped down into darkness ; the wood 
was a heap of grey ashes in which the sparks ran hither and 
thither ; but even in the groping darkness Susan knew by 
the sinking at her heart that Michael was not there. She 
threw another brand on the hearth and lighted the candle, 
and sat down to her work in silence. Willie cowered on his 
stool by the side of the fire, eyeing his sister from time to 
time, and sorry and oppressed, he knew not why, by the 
sight of her grave, almost stern face. No one came. They 
two were in the house alone. The old woman who helped 
Susan with the household work had gone out for the night 
to some friend’s dwelling. William Dixon, the father, was 
up on the fells seeing after his sheep. Susan had no heart 
to prepare the evening meal. 

“ Susy, darling, are you angry with me ? ” asked Willie, 
in his little piping, gentle voice. He had stolen up to his 
sister’s side. “ I won’t never play with the fire again ; and 
I’ll not cry if Michael does kick me. Only don’t look so like 
dead mother — don’t — don’t — please don’t ! ” he exclaimed, 
hiding his face on her shoulder. 

“ I’m not angry, Willie,” said she. “ Don’t be feared on 
me. You want your supper, and you shall have it ; and 
don’t you be feared on Michael. He shall give reasons for 
every hair of your head that he touches — he shall.” 

When William Dixon came home he found Susan and 
Willie sitting together, hand-in-hand, and apparently pretty 
cheerful. He bade them go to bed, for that he would sit up 
for Michael ; and the next morning, when Susan came down, 
she found that Michael had started an hour before, with the 
cart for lime. It was a long day’s work ; Susan knew it 
would be late, perhaps later than on the preceding night, 
before he returned — at any rate, past her usual bed-time; 

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Half a Lifetime Ago 

and on no account would she stop up a minute beyond that 
hour in the kitchen, whatever she might do in her bedroom. 
Here she sat and watched till past midnight ; and when she 
saw him coming up the brow with the carts, she knew full 
well, even in that faint moonlight, that his gait was the gait 
of a man in liquor. But, though she was annoyed and 
mortified to find in what way he had chosen to forget her, 
the fact did not disgust or shock her as it would have done 
many a girl, even at that day, who had not been brought up 
as Susan had, among a class who considered it no crime, but 
rather a mark of spirit, in a man to get drunk occasionally. 
Nevertheless, she chose to hold herself very high all the next 
day, when Michael was, perforce, obliged to give up any 
attempt to do heavy work, and hung about the outbuildings 
and farm in a very disconsolate and sickly state. Willie had 
far more pity on him than Susan. Before evening, Willie 
and he were fast and, on his side, ostentatious friends. 
Willie rode the horses down to water ; Willie helped him to 
chop wood. Susan sat gloomily at her work, hearing an 
indistinct but cheerful conversation going on in the shippon, 
while the cows were being milked. She almost felt irritated 
with her little brother, as if he were a traitor, and had 
gone over to the enemy in the very battle that she was 
fighting in his cause. She was alone with no one to speak 
to, while they prattled on regardless if she were glad or 
sorry. 

Soon Willie burst in. “ Susan ! Susan ! come with me ; 
I’ve something so pretty to show you. Bound the corner of 
the barn — run ! run ! (He was dragging her along, half- 
reluctant, half-desirous of some change in that weary day.) 
Round the corner of the bam ; and caught hold of by 
Michael, who stood there awaiting her. 

“ O Willie ! ” cried she, “ you naughty boy. There is 
nothing pretty — what have you brought me here for ? Let 
me go ; I won’t be held.” 

“ Only one word. Nay, if you wish it so much, you may 
go,” said Michael, suddenly loosing his hold as she struggled. 

289 u 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

But now she was free, she only drew off a step or two, 
murmuring something about Willie. 

“You are going, then ? ” said Michael, with seeming 
sadness. “ You won’t hear me say a word of what is in my 
heart ? ” 

“ How can I tell whether it is what I should like to 
hear ? ” replied she, still drawing back. 

“ That is just what I want you to tell me ; I want 
you to hear it, and then to tell me whether you like it 
or not.” 

“ Well, you may speak,” replied she, turning her back, 
and beginning to plait the hem of her apron. 

He came close to her ear. 

“ I’m sorry I hurt Willie the other night. He has for- 
given me. Can’t you ? ” 

“You hurt him very badly,” she replied. “ But you are 
right to be sorry. I forgive you.” 

“ Stop, stop ! ” said he, laying his hand upon her arm. 
“ There is something more I’ve got to say. I want you to 
be my what is it they call it, Susan ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said she, half -laughing, but trying to 
get away with all her might now — and she was a strong girl ; 
but she could not manage it. 

“ You do. My what is it I want you to be ? ” 

“ I tell you I don’t know, and you had best be quiet, and 
just let me go in ; or I shall think you’re as bad now as you 
were last night.” 

“ And how did you know what I was last night ? It was 
past twelve when I came home. Were you watching ? Ah, 
Susan ! be my wife, and you shall never have to watch for a 
drunken husband. If I were your husband, I would come 
straight home, and count every minute an hour till I saw 
your bonny face. Now you know what I want you to be. 
I ask you to be my wife. Will you, my own dear Susan ? ” 

She did not speak for some time. Then she only said 
“ Ask father.” And now she was really off like a lapwing, 
round the corner of the barn, and up in her own little room, 

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Half a Lifetime Ago 

crying with all her might, before the triumphant smile had 
left Michael’s face where he stood. 

The “ Ask father” was a mere form to be gone through. 
Old Daniel Hurst and William Dixon had talked over what 
they could respectively give their children before this, and 
that was the parental way of arranging such matters. When 
the probable amount of worldly gear that he could give his 
child had been named by each father, the young folk, as 
they said, might take their own time in coming to the point 
which the old men, with the prescience of experience, saw 
they were drifting to : no need to hurry them, for they were 
both young, and Michael, though active enough, was too 
thoughtless, old Daniel said, to be trusted with the entire 
management of a farm. Meanwhile, his father would look 
about him, and see after all the farms that were to be let. 

Michael had a shrewd notion of this preliminary under- 
standing between the fathers, and so felt less daunted than 
he might otherwise have done at making the application for 
Susan’s hand. It was all right ; there was not an obstacle, 
only a deal of good advice, which the lover thought might 
have as well been spared, and which it must be confessed 
he did not much attend to, although he assented to every 
part of it. Then Susan was called downstairs, and slowly 
came dropping into view down the steps which led from the 
two family apartments into the house-place. She tried to 
look composed and quiet, but it could not be done. She 
stood side by side with her lover, with her head drooping, 
her cheeks burning, not daring to look up or move, while 
her father made the newly-betrothed a somewhat formal 
address in which he gave his consent, and many a piece of 
worldly wisdom beside. Susan listened, as well as she could 
for the beating of her heart ; but, when her father solemnly 
and sadly referred to his own lost wife, she could keep from 
sobbing no longer ; but, throwing her apron over her face, 
she sat down on the bench by the dresser, and fairly gave 
way to pent-up tears. Oh, how strangely sweet to be com- 
forted as she was comforted, by tender caress, and many a 

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Half, a Lifetime Ago 

low- whispered promise of love! Her father sat by the fire, 
thinking of the days that were gone ; Willie was still out of 
doors : but Susan and Michael felt no one’s presence or 
absence — they only knew they were together as betrothed 
husband and wife. 

In a week or two, they were formally told of the arrange- 
ments to be made in their favour. A small farm in the 
neighbourhood happened to fall vacant ; and Michael’s father 
offered to take it for him, and be responsible for the rent for 
the first year, while William Dixon was to contribute a 
certain amount of stock, and both fathers were to help 
towards the furnishing of the house. Susan received all this 
information in a quiet, indifferent way ; she did not care 
much for any of these preparations, which were to hurry her 
through the happy hours ; she cared least of all for the 
money amount of dowry and of substance. It jarred on her 
to be made the confidante of occasional slight repinings of 
Michael’s, as one by one his future father-in-law set aside a 
beast or a pig for Susan’s portion, which were not always 
the best animals of their kind upon the farm. But he also 
complained of his own father’s stinginess, which somewhat, 
though not much, alleviated Susan's dislike to being 
awakened out of her pure dream of love to the consideration 
of worldly wealth. 

But, in the midst of all this bustle, Willie moped and 
pined. He had the same chord of delicacy running through 
his mind that made his body feeble and weak. He kept out 
of the way, and was apparently occupied in whittling and 
carving uncouth heads on hazel-sticks in an out-house. But 
he positively avoided Michael, and shrank away even from 
Susan. She was too much occupied to notice this at first. 
Michael pointed it out to her, saying, with a laugh — 

“ Look at Willie ; he might be a cast-off lover and jealous 
of me, he looks so dark and downcast at me.” Michael 
spoke this jest out loud ; and Willie burst into tears, and ran 
out of the house. 

“ Let me go. Let me go ! ” said Susan (for her lover’s 
292 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

arm was round her waist). I must go to him if he’s fretting. 
I promised mother I would ! ” She pulled herself away, and 
went in search of the boy. She sought in byre and barn, 
through the orchard, where indeed in this leafless winter 
time there was no great concealment; up into the room 
where the wool was usually stored in the later summer, and 
at last she found him, sitting at bay, like some hunted 
creature, up behind the wood-stack. 

“ What are ye gone for, lad, and me seeking you every- 
where ? ” asked she, breathless. 

“ I did not know you would seek me. I’ve been away 
many a time, and no one has cared to seek me,” said he, 
crying afresh. 

“ Nonsense,” replied Susan, “ don’t be so foolish, ye little 
good-for-nought.” But she crept up to him in the hole he 
had made underneath the great, brown sheafs of wood, and 
squeezed herself down by him. “ What for should folk seek 
after you, when you get away from them whenever you 
can ? ” asked she. 

“ They don’t want me to stay. Nobody wants me. If I 
go with father, he says I hinder more than I help. You 
used to like to have me with you. But now, you’ve taken up 
with Michael, and you’d rather I was away ; and I can just 
bide away ; but I cannot stand Michael jeering at me. He’s 
got you to love him, and that might serve him.” 

“ But I love you too, dearly, lad ! ” said she, putting her 
arm round his neck. 

“ Which on us do you like best ? ” said he wistfully, after 
a little pause, putting her arm away, so that he might look 
in her face, and see if she spoke truth. 

She went very red. 

“ You should not ask such questions. They are not fit 
for you to ask, nor for me to answer.” 

“ But mother bade you love me ! ” said he plaintively. 

“ And so I do. And so I ever will do. Lover nor 
husband shall come betwixt thee and me, lad — ne’er a one 
of them. That I promise thee (as I promised mother before), 

293 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

in the sight of God and with her hearkening now, if ever 
she can hearken to earthly word again. Only I cannot 
abide to have thee fretting, just because my heart is large 
enough for two.” 

“ And thou’lt love me always ? ” 

“ Always, and ever. And the more — the more thou’lt 
love Michael,” said she, dropping her voice. 

“I’ll try,” said the boy, sighing, for he remembered 
many a harsh word and blow of which his sister knew 
nothing. She would have risen up to go away, but he held 
her tight ; for here and now she was all his own, and he did 
not know when such a time might come again. So the two 
sat crouched up and silent, till they heard the horn blowing 
at the field-gate, which was the summons home to any 
wanderers belonging to the farm and, at this hour of the 
evening, signified that supper was ready. Then the two 
went in. 


CHAPTER II 

Susan and Michael were to be married in April. He had 
already gone to take possession of his new farm, three or 
four miles away from Yew Nook — but that is neighbouring, 
according to the acceptation of the word in that thinly- 
populated district, — when William Dixon fell ill. He came 
home one evening, complaining of headache and pains in 
his limbs, but seemed to loathe the posset which Susan 
prepared for him : the treacle -posset which was the homely 
country remedy against an incipient cold. He took to his 
bed with a sensation of exceeding weariness, and an odd, 
unusual looking-back to the days of his youth, when he 
was a lad living with his parents, in this very house. 

The next morning he had forgotten all his life since 
then, and did not know his own children; crying, like a 

294 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

newly-weaned baby, for his mother to come and soothe 
away his terrible pain. The doctor from Coniston said 
it was the typhus fever, and warned Susan of its infectious 
character, and shook his head over his patient. There were 
no near friends to come and share her anxiety ; only good, 
kind old Peggy, who was faithfulness itself, and one or two 
labourers’ wives, who would fain have helped her, had not 
their hands been tied by their responsibility to their own 
families. But, somehow, Susan neither feared nor flagged. 
As for fear, indeed, she had no time to give way to it, for 
every energy of both body and mind was required. Besides, 
the young have had too little experience of the danger of 
infection to dread it much. She did indeed wish, from 
time to time, that Michael had been at home to have taken 
Willie over to his father’s at High Beck ; but then, again, 
the lad was docile and useful to her, and his fecklessness 
in many things might make him harshly treated by strangers ; 
so, perhaps, it was as well that Michael was away at Appleby 
fair, or even beyond that — gone into Yorkshire after horses. 

Her father grew worse ; and the doctor insisted on send- 
ing over a nurse from Coniston. Not a professed nurse — 
Coniston could not have supported such a one ; but a widow 
who was ready to go where the doctor sent her for the sake 
of the payment. When she came, Susan suddenly gave 
way; she was felled by the fever herself, and lay uncon- 
scious for long weeks. Her consciousness returned to her 
one spring afternoon : early spring ; April — her wedding 
month. There was a little fire burning in the small corner- 
grate, and the flickering of the blaze was enough for her 
to notice in her weak state. She felt that there was some 
one sitting on the window side of her bed, behind the 
curtain, but she did not care to know who it was ; it was 
even too great a trouble for her languid mind to consider 
who it was likely to be. She would rather shut her eyes, 
and melt off again into the gentle luxury of sleep. The 
next time she wakened, the Coniston nurse perceived her 
movement, and made her a cup of tea, which she drank 

295 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

with eager relish ; but still they did not speak, and once 
more Susan lay motionless — not asleep, but strangely, 
pleasantly conscious of all the small chamber and house- 
hold sounds ; the fall of a cinder on the hearth, the fitful 
singing of the half-empty kettle, the cattle tramping out 
to field again after they had been milked, the aged step 
on the creaking stair — old Peggy’s, as she knew. It came 
to her door; it stopped; the person outside listened for a 
moment, and then lifted the wooden latch, and looked in. 
The watcher by the bedside arose, and went to her. Susan 
would have been glad to see Peggy’s face once more, but 
was far too weak to turn, so she lay and listened. 

“ How is she ? ” whispered one trembling, aged voice. 

“ Better,” replied the other. “ She’s been awake, and 
had a cup of tea. She’ll do now.” 

“ Has she asked after him ? ” 

“ Hush ! No ; she has not spoken a word.” 

“ Poor lass ! poor lass ! ” 

The door was shut. A weak feeling of sorrow and self- 
pity came over Susan. What was wrong ? Whom had 
she loved? And dawning, dawning, slowly rose the sun 
of her former life, and all particulars were made distinct 
to her. She felt that some sorrow was coming to her, and 
cried over it before she knew what it was, or had strength 
enough to ask. In the dead of night — and she had 
never slept again— she softly called to the watcher, and 
asked — 

“ Who?” 

“ Who what ? ” replied the woman, with a conscious 
affright, ill-veiled by a poor assumption of ease. “ Lie 
still, there’s a darling, and go to sleep. Sleep’s better for 
you than all the doctor’s stuff.” 

“ Who ? ” repeated Susan. “ Something is wrong. 
Who ? ” 

“ Oh, dear ! ” said the woman. “ There’s nothing wrong. 
Willie has taken the turn, and is doing nicely.” 

“ Bather ? ” 


296 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

“ Well ! he’s all right now,” she answered, looking 
another way, as if seeking for something. 

“ Then it’s Michael ! Oh, me ! oh, me ! ” She set up a 
succession of weak, plaintive, hysterical cries before the 
nurse could pacify her by declaring that Michael had been 
at the house not three hours before to ask after her, and 
looked as well and as hearty as ever man did. 

“ And you heard of no harm to him since ? ” inquired 
Susan. 

“ Bless the lass, no, for sure ! I’ve ne’er heard his name 
named since I saw him go out of the yard as stout a man as 
ever trod shoe-leather.” 

It was well, as the nurse said afterwards to Peggy, that 
Susan had been so easily pacified by the equivocating answer 
in respect to her father. If she had pressed the questions 
home in his case as she did in Michael’s, she would have 
learnt that he was dead and buried more than a month before. 
It was well, too, that in her weak state of convalescence 
(which lasted long after this first day of consciousness) her 
perceptions were not sharp enough to observe the sad change 
that had taken place in Willie. His bodily strength returned; 
his appetite was something enormous — but his eyes wandered 
continually ; his regard could not be arrested ; his speech 
became slow, impeded, and incoherent. People began to 
say that the fever had taken away the little wit Willie 
Dixon had ever possessed, and that they feared that he 
would end in being a “ natural,” as they call an idiot in the 
Dales. 

The habitual affection and obedience to Susan lasted 
longer than any other feeling that the boy had had previous 
to his illness ; and, perhaps, this made her be the last to 
perceive what every one else had long anticipated. She 
felt the awakening rude when it did come. It was in this 
wise : — 

One June evening, she sat out of doors under the yew- 
tree, knitting. She was pale still from her recent illness ; 
and her languor, joined to the fact of her black dress, made 

2 97 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

her look more than usually interesting. She was no longer 
the buoyant self-sufficient Susan, equal to every occasion. 
The men were bringing in the cows to be milked, and 
Michael was about in the yard giving orders and directions 
with somewhat the air of a master, for the farm belonged of 
right to Willie, and Susan had succeeded to the guardianship 
of her brother. Michael and she were to be married as soon 
as she was strong enough — so perhaps, his authoritative 
manner was justified ; but the labourers did not like it, 
although they said little. They remembered him a stripling 
on the farm, knowing far less than they did, and often glad 
to shelter his ignorance of all agricultural matters behind 
their superior knowledge. They would have taken orders 
from Susan with far more willingness ; nay, Willie himself 
might have commanded them ; and from the old hereditary 
feeling toward the owners of land, they would have obeyed 
him with far greater cordiality than they now showed to 
Michael. But Susan was tired with even three rounds of 
knitting, and seemed not to notice, or to care, how things 
went on around her ; and Willie — poor Willie ! — there he 
stood lounging against the door-sill, enormously grown and 
developed, to be sure, but with restless eyes and ever open 
mouth, and every now and then setting up a strange kind of 
howling cry, and then smiling vacantly to himself at the 
sound he had made. As the two old labourers passed him, 
they looked at each other ominously, and shook their 
heads. 

“ Willie, darling,” said Susan, “ don’t make that noise — it 
makes my head ache.” 

She spoke feebly, and Willie did not seem to hear ; at any 
rate, he continued his howl from time to time. 

“ Hold thy noise, wilt’a ? ” said Michael roughly, as 
he passed near him, and threatening him with his fist. 
Susan’s back was turned to the pair. The expression 
of Willie’s face changed from vacancy to fear, and he came 
shambling up to Susan, who put her arm round him ; 
and, as if protected by that shelter, he began making 

298 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

faces at Michael. Susali saw what was going on, and, as if 
now first struck by the strangeness of her brother’s manner, 
she looked anxiously at Michael for an explanation. Michael 
was irritated at Willie’s defiance of him, and did not mince 
the matter. 

“ It’s just that the fever has left him silly — he never was 
as wise as other folk, and now I doubt if he will ever get 
right.” 

Susan did not speak, but she went very pale, and her lip 
quivered. She looked long and wistfully at Willie’s face, as 
he watched the motion of the ducks in the great stable-pool. 
He laughed softly to himself every now and then. 

“ Willie likes to see the ducks go overhead,” said Susan, 
instinctively adopting the form of speech she would have 
used to a young child. 

“ Willie, boo ! Willie, boo ! ” he replied, clapping his 
hands, and avoiding her eye. 

“ Speak properly, Willie,” said Susan, making a strong 
effort at self-control, and trying to arrest his attention. 

“You know who I am — tell me my name ! ” She 
grasped his arm almost painfully tight to make him attend. 
Now he looked at her, and, for an instant, a gleam of recog- 
nition quivered over his face ; but the exertion was evidently 
painful, and he began to cry at the vainness of the effort to 
recall her name. He hid his face upon her shoulder with 
the old affectionate trick of manner. She put him gently 
away, and went into the house into her own little bedroom. 
She locked the door, and did not reply at all to Michael's 
calls for her, hardly spoke to old Peggy, who tried to tempt 
her out to receive some homely sympathy; and through the 
open casement there still came the idiotic sound of “ Willie, 
boo ! Willie, boo ! ” 


299 


Half a Lifetime Ago 


CHAPTER III 

Afteb the stun of the blow came the realisation of the 
consequences. Susan would sit for hours trying patiently to 
recall and piece together fragments of recollection and con- 
sciousness in her brother’s mind. She would let him go and 
pursue some senseless bit of play, and wait until she could 
catch his eye or his attention again, when she would resume 
her self-imposed task. Michael complained that she never 
had a word for him, or a minute of time to spend with him 
now ; but she only said she must try, while there was yet a 
chance, to bring back her brother’s lost wits. As for mar- 
riage in this state of uncertainty, she had no heart to think 
of it. Then Michael stormed, and absented himself for two 
or three days ; but it was of no use. When he came back, 
he saw that she had been crying till her eyes were all swollen 
up, and he gathered from Peggy’s scoldings (which she did 
not spare him) that Susan had eaten nothing since he went 
away. But she was as inflexible as ever. 

“Not just yet. Only not just yet. And don’t say again 
that I do not love you,” said she, suddenly hiding herself in 
his arms. 

And so matters went on through August. The crop of 
oats was gathered in ; the wheat-field was not ready as yet, 
when one fine day Michael drove up in a borrowed shandry, 
and offered to take Willie a ride. His manner, when Susan 
asked him where he was going to, was rather confused ; but 
the answer was straight and clear enough. 

He had business in Ambleside. He would never lose 
sight of the lad, and have him back safe and sound before 
dark. So Susan let him go. 

Before night they were at home again : W illi e in high 
delight at a little rattling paper windmill that Michael had 
bought for him in the street, and striving to imitate this 
new sound with perpetual buzzings. Michael, too, looked 

300 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

pleased. Susan knew the look, although afterwards she 
remembered that he had tried to veil it from her, and had 
assumed a grave appearance of sorrow wherever he caught 
her eye. He put up his horse ; for, although he had three 
miles further to go, the moon was up — the bonny harvest- 
moon — and he did not care how late he had to drive on such 
a road by such a light. After the supper which Susan had 
prepared for the travellers was over, Peggy went upstairs to 
see Willie safe in bed ; for he had to have the same care 
taken of him that a little child of four years old requires. 

Michael drew near to Susan. 

“ Susan,” said he, “ I took Will to see Dr. Preston, at 
Kendal. He’s the first doctor in the county. I thought it 
were better for us — for you — to know at once what chance 
there were for him.” 

“ Well ! ” said Susan, looking eagerly up. She saw the 
same strange glance of satisfaction, the same instant change 
to apparent regret and pain. “ What did he say ? ” said 
she. “ Speak ! can’t you ? ” 

“ He said he would never get better of his weakness.” 

“ Never ! ” 

“ No ; never. It’s a long word, and hard to bear. And 
there’s worse to come, dearest. The doctor thinks he will 
get badder from year to year. And he said, if he was us — 
you — he would send him off in time to Lancaster Asylum. 
They’ve ways there both of keeping such people in order and 
making them happy. I only tell you what he said,” con- 
tinued he, seeing the gathering storm in her face. 

“ There was no harm in his saying it,” she replied, with 
great self-constraint, forcing herself to speak coldly instead 
of angrily. “ Polk is welcome to their opinions.” 

They sat silent for a minute or two, her breast heaving 
with suppressed feeling. 

“ He’s counted a very clever man,” said Michael at 
length. 

“ He may be. He’s none of my clever men, nor am I 
going to be guided by him, whatever he may think. And I. 

301 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

don’t thank them that went and took my poor lad to have 
such harsh notions formed about him. If I’d been there, I 
could have called out the sense that is in him.” 

“ Well ! I’ll not say more to-night, Susan. You’re not 
taking it rightly, and I’d best be gone, and leave you to think 
it over. I’ll not deny they are hard words to hear, but there’s 
sense in them, as I take it ; and I reckon you’ll have to come 
to ’em. Anyhow, it’s a bad way of thanking me for my pains ; 
and I don’t take it well in you, Susan,” said he, getting up, 
as if offended. 

“ Michael, I’m beside myself with sorrow. Don’t blame 
me if I speak sharp. He and me is the only ones, you see. 
And mother did so charge me to have a care of him ! And 
this is what he’s come to, poor lile chap ! ” She began to 
cry, and Michael to comfort her with caresses. 

“ Don’t,” said she. “ It’s no use trying to make me 
forget poor Willie is a natural. I could hate myself for 
being happy with you, even for just a little minute. Go 
away, and leave me to face it out.” 

“ And you’ll think it over, Susan, and remember what the 
doctor says ? ” 

“ I can’t forget,” said she. She meant she could not for- 
get what the doctor had said about the hopelessness of her 
brother’s case ; Michael had referred to the plan of sending 
Willie to an asylum, or madhouse, as they were called in that 
day and place. The idea had been gathering force in 
Michael’s mind for some time ; he had talked it over with his 
father, and secretly rejoiced over the possession of the farm 
and land which would then be his in fact, if not in law, by 
right of his wife. He had always considered the good penny 
her father could give her in his catalogue of Susan’s charms 
and attractions. But of late he had grown to esteem her as 
the heiress of Yew Nook. He, too, should have land like his 
brother — land to possess, to cultivate, to make profit from, 
to bequeath. For some time he had wondered that Susan 
had been so much absorbed in Willie’s present, that she had 
never seemed to look forward to his future, state. Michael 

3°2 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

had long felt the boy to be a trouble ; but of late he had 
absolutely loathed him. His gibbering, his uncouth gestures, 
his loose, shambling gait, all irritated Michael inexpressibly. 
He did not come near the Yew Nook for a couple of days. 
He thought that he would leave her time to become anxious 
to see him and reconciled to his plan. They were strange 
lonely days to Susan. They were the first she had spent 
face to face with the sorrows that had turned her from a girl 
into a woman ; for hitherto Michael had never let twenty- 
four hours pass by without coming to see her since she had 
had the fever. Now that he was absent, it seemed as though 
some cause of irritation was removed from Will, who was 
much more gentle and tractable than he had been for many 
weeks. Susan thought that she observed him making efforts 
at her bidding ; and there was something piteous in the way 
in which he crept up to her, and looked wistfully in her face, 
as if asking her to restore him the faculties that he felt to be 
wanting. 

“I never will let thee go, lad. Never! There’s no 
knowing where they would take thee to, or what they would 
do with thee. As it says in the Bible, ‘ Nought but death 
shall part thee and me ! ’ ” 

The country-side was full, in those days, of stories of the 
brutal treatment offered to the insane : stories that were, in 
fact, but too well founded, and the truth of one of which only 
would have been a sufficient reason for the strong prejudice 
existing against all such places. Each succeeding hour that 
Susan passed, alone, or with the poor affectionate lad for her 
sole companion, served to deepen her solemn resolution never 
to part with him. So, when Michael came, he was annoyed 
and surprised by the calm way in which she spoke, as if 
following Dr. Preston’s advice was utterly and entirely out of 
the question. He had expected nothing less than a consent, 
reluctant it might be, but still a consent ; and he was ex- 
tremely irritated. He could have repressed his anger, but he 
chose rather to give way to it ; thinking that he could thus 
best work upon Susan’s affection, so as to gain his point, 

303 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

But, somehow, he over-reached himself; and now he was 
astonished in his turn at the passion of indignation that she 
burst into. 

“ Thou wilt not bide in the same house with him, say»’st 
thou ? There’s no need for thy biding, as far as I can tell. 
There’s solemn reason why I should bide with my own flesh 
and blood, and keep to the word I pledged my mother on her 
death-bed ; but, as for thee, there’s no tie that I know on to 
keep thee fro’ going to America or Botany Bay this very 
night, if that were thy inclination. I will have no more of 
your threats to make me send my bairn away. If thou 
marry me, thou’lt help me to take charge of Willie. If thou 
doesn’t choose to marry me on those terms — why, I can 
snap my fingers at thee, never fear. I’m not so far gone in 
love as that. But I will not have thee, if thou say’st in such 
a hectoring way that Willie must go out of the house — and 
the house his own too— before thou’lt set foot in it. Willie 
bides here, and I bide with him.” 

“ Thou hast may be spoken a word too much,” said 
Michael, pale with rage. “ If I am free, as thou say’st, to 
go to Canada, or Botany Bay, I reckon I’m free to live 
where I like ; and that will not be with a natural who may 
turn into a madman some day, for aught I know. Choose 
between him and me, Susy, for I swear to thee, thou shan’t 
have both.” 

“ I have chosen,” said Susan, now perfectly composed 
and still. “ Whatever comes of it, I bide with Willie.” 

“ Very well,” replied Michael, trying to assume an equal 
composure of manner. “ Then I’ll wish you a very good 
night.” He went out of the house door, half -expecting to be 
called back again ; but, instead, he heard a hasty step inside, 
and a bolt drawn. 

“ Whew ! ” said he to himself, “ I think I must leave my 
lady alone for a week or two, and give her time to come to 
her senses. She’ll not find it so easy as she thinks to let 
me go.” 

So he went past the kitchen window in nonchalant style, 

3°4 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

and was not seen again at Yew Nook for some weeks. How 
did he pass the time ? For the first day or two, he was 
unusually cross with all things and people that came athwart 
him. Then wheat-harvest began, and he was busy, and 
exultant about his heavy crop. Then a man came from a 
distance to bid for the lease of his farm, which, by his 
father’s advice, had been offered for sale, as he himself was 
so soon likely to remove to the Yew Nook. He had so little 
idea that Susan really would remain firm to her determina- 
tion, that he at once began to haggle with the man who 
came after his farm, showed him the crop just got in, and 
managed skilfully enough to make a good bargain for him- 
self. Of course, the bargain had to be sealed at the public- 
house l and the companions he met with there soon became 
friends enough to tempt him into Langdale, where again he 
met with Eleanor Hebthwaite. 

How did Susan pass the time ? For the first day or so, 
she was too angry and offended to cry. She went about her 
household duties in a quick, sharp, jerking, yet absent way ; 
shrinking one moment from Will, overwhelming him with 
remorseful caresses the next. The third day of Michael’s 
absence, she had the relief of a good fit of crying ; and, after 
that, she grew softer and more tender ; she felt how harshly 
she had spoken to him, and remembered how angry she had 
been. She made excuses for him. “ It was no wonder,” 
she said to herself, “ that he had been vexed with her ; and 
no wonder he would not give in, when she had never tried 
to speak gently or to reason with him. She was to blame, 
and she would tell him so, and tell him once again all that 
her mother had bade her to be to Willie, and all the horrible 
stories she had heard about madhouses ; and he would be on 
her side at once.” 

And so she watched for his coming, intending to apolo- 
gise as soon as ever she saw him. She hurried over her 
household work, in order to sit quietly at her sewing, and 
hear the first distant sound of his well-known step or 
whistle. But even the sound of her flying needle seemed 

305 x 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

too loud — perhaps she was losing an exquisite instant of 
anticipation; so she stopped sewing, and looked longingly 
out through the geranium leaves, in order that her eye 
might catch the first stir of the branches in the wood-path 
by which he generally came. Now and then a bird might 
spring out of the covert; otherwise the leaves were heavily 
still in the sultry weather of early autumn. Then she would 
take up her sewing, and, with a spasm of resolution, she 
would determine that a certain task should be fulfilled before 
she would again allow herself the poignant luxury of expec- 
tation. Sick at heart was she when the evening closed in, 
and the chances of that day diminished. Yet she stayed 
up longer than usual, thinking that if he were coming — 
if he were only passing along the distant road — the sight 
of a light in the window might encourage him to make his 
appearance even at that late hour, while seeing the house all 
darkened and shut up might quench any such intention. 

Very sick and weary at heart, she went to bed ; too 
desolate and despairing to cry, or make any moan. But in 
the morning hope came afresh. Another day — another 
chance ! And so it went on for weeks. Peggy understood 
her young mistress’s sorrow full well, and respected it by 
her silence on the subject. Willie seemed happier now that 
the irritation of Michael’s presence was removed ; for the 
poor idiot had a sort of antipathy to Michael, which was a 
kind of heart’s echo to the repugnance in which the latter 
held him. Altogether, just at this time, Willie was the 
happiest of the three. 

As Susan went into Coniston, to sell her butter, one 
Saturday, some inconsiderate person told her that she had 
seen Michael Hurst the night before. I said inconsiderate, 
but I might rather have said unobservant ; for any one who 
had spent half-an-hour in Susan Dixon’s company might 
have seen that she disliked having any reference made to 
the subjects nearest her heart, were they joyous or grievous. 
Now she went a little paler than usual (and she had never 
recovered her colour since she had had the fever), and tried 

306 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

to keep silence. But an irrepressible pang forced out the 
question — 

“ Where ? ” 

“ At Thomas Applethwaite’s, in Langdale. They had a 
kind of harvest-home ; and he were there among the young 
folk, and very thick wi’ Nelly Hebthwaite, old Thomas’s 
niece. Thou’lt have to look after him a bit, Susan ! ” 

She neither smiled nor sighed. The neighbour who had 
been speaking to her was struck with the grey stillness of 
her face. Susan herself felt how well her self-command 
was obeyed by every little muscle, and said to herself in her 
Spartan manner, “ I can bear it without either wincing or 
blenching.” She went home early, at a tearing, passionate 
pace, trampling and breaking through all obstacles of briar 
or bush. Willie was moping in her absence — hanging 
listlessly on the farm-yard gate to watch for her. When he 
saw her, he set up one of his strange, inarticulate cries, of 
which she was now learning the meaning, and came towards 
her with his loose, galloping run, head and limbs all shaking 
and wagging with pleasant excitement. Suddenly she turned 
from him, and burst into tears. She sat down on a stone 
by the wayside, not a hundred yards from home, and buried 
her face in her hands, and gave way to a passion of pent-up 
sorrow ; so terrible and full of agony were her low cries that 
the idiot stood by her, aghast and silent — all his joy gone 
for the time, but not, like her joy, turned into ashes. Some 
thought struck him. Yes ! the sight of her woe made him 
think, great as the exertion was. He ran, and stumbled, 
and shambled home, buzzing with his lips all the time. She 
never missed him. He came back in a trice, bringing with 
him his cherished paper windmill, bought on that fatal day 
when Michael had taken him into Kendal to have his doom 
of perpetual idiotcy pronounced. He thrust it into Susan’s 
face, her hands, her lap, regardless of the injury his frail 
plaything thereby received. He leapt before her to think 
how he had cured all heart- sorrow, buzzing louder than ever. 
Susan looked up at him, and that glance of her sad eyes 

307 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

sobered him. He began to whimper, he knew not why; 
and she now, comforter in her turn, tried to soothe him by 
twirling his windmill. But it was broken ; it made no 
noise ; it would not go round. This seemed to afflict Susan 
more than him. She tried to make it right, although she 
saw the task was hopeless ; and, while she did so, the tears 
rained down, unheeded, from her bent head on the paper toy. 

“ It won’t do,” said she at last. “ It will never do again.” 
And, somehow, she took the accident and her words as 
omens of the love that was broken, and that she feared could 
never be pieced together more. She rose up and took 
Willie’s hand, and the two went slowly into the house. 

To her surprise, Michael Hurst sat in the house-place. 
House-place is a sort of better kitchen, where no cookery is 
done, but which is reserved for state occasions. Michael 
had gone in there because he was accompanied by his only 
sister, a woman older than himself, who was well married 
beyond Keswick, and who now came for the first time to 
make acquaintance with Susan. Michael had primed his 
sister with his wishes regarding Will, and the position in 
which he stood with Susan ; and, arriving at Yew Nook in 
the absence of the latter, he had not scrupled to conduct his 
sister into the guest-room, as he held Mrs. Gale’s worldly 
position in respect and admiration, and therefore wished her 
to be favourably impressed with all the signs of property 
which he was beginning to consider as Susan’s greatest 
charms. He had secretly said to himself that, if Eleanor 
Hebth waite and Susan Dixon were equal in point of riches, 
he would sooner have Eleanor by far. He had begun to 
consider Susan as a termagant ; and, when he thought of his 
intercourse with her, recollections of her somewhat warm 
and hasty temper came far more readily to his mind than 
any remembrance of her generous, loving nature. 

And now she stood face to face with him ; her eyes tear- 
swollen, her garments dusty, and here and there torn in 
consequence of her rapid progress through the bushy by- 
paths. She did not make a favourable impression on the 

308 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

well-clad Mrs. Gale, dressed in her best silk gown, and 
therefore unusually susceptible to the appearance of another. 
Nor were Susan’s manners gracious or cordial. How could 
they be, when she remembered what had passed between 
Michael and herself the last time they met ? For her peni- 
tence had faded away under the daily disappointment of these 
last weary weeks. 

But she was hospitable in substance. She bade Peggy 
hurry on the kettle, and busied herself among the tea-cups ; 
thankful that the presence of Mrs. Gale, as a stranger, would 
prevent the immediate recurrence to the one subject which 
she felt must be present in Michael’s mind as well as in her 
own. But Mrs. Gale was withheld by no such feelings of 
delicacy. She had come ready-primed with the case, and 
had undertaken to bring the girl to reason. There was no 
time to be lost. It had been pre-arranged between the brother 
and sister that he was to stroll out into the farm-yard before 
his sister introduced the subject ; but she was so confident 
in the success of her arguments that she must needs 
have the triumph of a victory as soon as possible ; and, 
accordingly, she brought a hailstorm of good reasons to bear 
upon Susan. Susan did not reply for a long time ; she was 
so indignant at this intermeddling of a stranger in the deep 
family sorrow and shame. Mrs. Gale thought she was gaining 
the day, and urged her arguments more pitilessly. Even 
Michael winced for Susan, and wondered at her silence. He 
shrunk out of sight, and into the shadow, hoping that his 
sister might prevail, but annoyed at the hard way in which 
she kept putting the case. 

Suddenly Susan turned round from the occupation she 
had pretended to be engaged in, and said to him in a low 
voice, which yet not only vibrated itself, but made its hearers 
thrill through all their obtuseness — 

“ Michael Hurst ! does your sister speak truth, think 
you ? ” 

Both women looked at him for his answer; Mrs. Gale 
without anxiety, for had she not said the very words they 

309 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

had spoken together before ? had she not used the very argu- 
ments that he himself had suggested ? Susan, on the contrary , 
looked to his answer as settling her doom for life ; and in the 
gloom of her eyes you might have read more despair than 
hope. 

He shuffled his position. He shuffled in his words. 

“ What is it you ask ? My sister has said many things.” 

“ I ask you,” said Susan, trying to give a crystal clearness 
both to her expressions and her pronunciation, “ if, knowing 
as you do how Will is afflicted, you will help me to take 
that charge of him which I promised my mother on her 
death-bed that I would do ; and which means, that I shall 
keep him always with me, and do all in my power to make 
his life happy. If you will do this, I will be your wife ; if 
not, I remain unwed.” 

“ But he may get dangerous ; he can be but a trouble ; 
his being here is a pain to you, Susan, not a pleasure.” 

“ I ask you for either yes or no,” said she, a little con- 
tempt at his evading her question mingling with her tone. 
He perceived it, and it nettled him. 

“ And I have told you. I answered your question the 
last time I was here. I said I would ne’er keep house 
with an idiot ; no more I will. So now you’ve gotten your 
answer.” 

“ I have,” said Susan. And she sighed deeply. 

“ Come, now,” said Mrs. Gale, encouraged by the sigh ; 
“ one would think you don’t love Michael, Susan, to be so 
stubborn in yielding to what I’m sure would be best for 
the lad.” 

“ Oh ! she does not care for me,” said Michael. “ I 
don’t believe she ever did.” 

“ Don’t I ? Haven’t I ? ” asked Susan, her eyes blazing 
out fire. She left the room directly, and sent Peggy in to 
make the tea ; and, catching at Will, who was lounging about 
in the kitchen, she went upstairs with him and bolted herself 
in, straining the boy to her heart, and keeping almost breath- 
leas, lest any noise she made might cause him to break out 

3T° 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

into the howls and sounds which she could not bear that 
those below should hear. 

A knock at the door. It was Peggy. 

“ He wants for to see you, to wish you good-bye.” 

“ I cannot come. Oh, Peggy, send them away.” 

It was her only cry for sympathy ; and the old servant 
understood it. She sent them away, somehow ; not politely, 
as I have been given to understand. 

“ Good go with them,” said Peggy, as she grimly watched 
their retreating figures. “ We’re rid of bad rubbish, any- 
how.” And she turned into the house, with the intention of 
making ready some refreshment for Susan, after her hard 
day at the market, and her harder evening. But in the 
kitchen, to which she passed through the empty house-place, 
making a face of contemptuous dislike at the used tea-cups 
and fragments of a meal yet standing there, she found Susan, 
with her sleeves tucked up and her working apron on, busied 
in preparing to make clap-bread, one of the hardest and 
hottest domestic tasks of a Daleswoman. She looked up, 
and first met, and then avoided, Peggy’s eye ; it was too full 
of sympathy. Her own cheeks were flushed, and her own 
eyes were dry and burning. 

“ Where’s the board, Peggy ? We need clap-bread ; and, 
I reckon, I’ve time to get through with it to-night.” Her 
voice had a sharp, dry tone in it, and her motions a jerking 
angularity about them. 

Peggy said nothing, but fetched her all that she needed. 
Susan beat her cakes thin with vehement force. As she 
stooped over them, regardless even of the task in which she 
seemed so much occupied, she was surprised by a touch on 
her mouth of something — what she did not see at first. It 
was a cup of tea, delicately sweetened and cooled, and held 
to her lips, when exactly ready, by the faithful old woman. 
Susan held it off a hand’s breadth, and looked into Peggy’s 
eyes, while her own filled with the strange relief of tears. 

“ Lass ! ” said Peggy solemnly, “ thou hast done well. It 
is not long to bide, and then the end will come.” 

3 11 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

“ But you are very old, Peggy,” said Susan, quivering. 

“ It is but a day sin’ I were young,” replied Peggy ; but 
she stopped the conversation by again pushing the cup with 
gentle force to Susan’s dry and thirsty lips. When she had 
drunken she fell again to her labour, Peggy heating the 
hearth, and doing all that she knew would be required, but 
never speaking another word. Willie basked close to the 
fire, enjoying the animal luxury of warmth, for the autumn 
evenings were beginning to be chilly. It was one o’clock 
before they thought of going to bed on that memorable 
night. 


CHAPTER IV 

The vehemence with which Susan Dixon threw herself into 
occupation could not last for ever. Times of languor and 
remembrance would come — times when she recurred with a 
passionate yearning to bygone days, the recollection of 
which was so vivid and delicious that it seemed as though it 
were the reality, and the present bleak bareness the dream. 
She smiled anew at the magical sweetness of some touch or 
tone which in memory she felt or heard, and drank the 
delicious cup of poison, although at the very time she knew 
what the consequences of racking pain would be. 

“ This time, last year,” thought she, “ we went nutting 
together — this very day last year ; just such a day as to-day. 
Purple and gold were the lights on the hills ; the leaves were 
just turning brown ; here and there on the sunny slopes the 
stubble-fields looked tawny ; down in a cleft of yon purple 
slate -rock the beck fell like a silver glancing thread ; all just 
as it is to-day. And he climbed the slender, swaying nut- 
trees, and bent the branches for me to gather ; or made a 
passage through the hazel copses, from time to time claiming 
a toll. Who could have thought he loved me so little ? — 
who ? — who ? ” 


3 X 2 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

Or, as the evening closed in, she would allow herself to 
imagine that she heard his coming step, just that she might 
recall the feeling of exquisite delight which had passed by 
without the due and passionate relish at the time. Then she 
would wonder how she could have had strength, the cruel, 
self -piercing strength, to say what she had done; to stab 
herself with that stem resolution, of which the scar would 
remain till her dying day. It might have been right ; but, 
as she sickened, she wished she had not instinctively chosen 
the right. How luxurious a life haunted by no stern sense 
of duty must be ! And many led this kind of life ; why 
could not she ? Oh, for one hour again of his sweet 
company ! If he came now, she would agree to whatever 
he proposed. 

It was a fever of the mind. She passed though it, and 
came out healthy, if weak. She was capable once more of 
taking pleasure in following an unseen guide through briar 
and brake. She returned with tenfold affection to her pro- 
tecting care of Willie. She acknowledged to herself that he 
was to be her all-in-all in life. She made him her constant 
companion. For his sake, as the real owner of Yew Nook, 
and as his steward and guardian, she began that course 
of careful saving, and that love of acquisition, which after- 
wards gained for her the reputation of being miserly. She 
still thought that he might regain a scanty portion of sense 
— enough to require some simple pleasures and excitement, 
which would cost money. And money should not be 
wanting. Peggy rather assisted her in the formation of her 
parsimonious habits than otherwise ; economy was the order 
of the district, and a certain degree of respectable avarice 
the characteristic of her age. Only Willie was never stinted 
nor hindered of anything that the two women thought could 
give him pleasure, for want of money. 

There was one gratification which Susan felt was needed 
for the restoration of her mind to its more healthy state, after 
she had passed through the whirling fever, when duty was as 
nothing, and anarchy reigned ; a gratification that, somehow, 

3*3 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

was to be her last burst of unreasonableness ; of which she 
knew and recognised pain as the sure consequence. She 
must see him once more — herself unseen. 

The week before the Christmas of this memorable year, 
she went out in the dusk of the early winter evening, 
wrapped close in shawl and cloak. She wore her dark 
shawl under her cloak, putting it over her head in lieu of a 
bonnet ; for she knew that she might have to wait long in 
concealment. Then she tramped over the wet fell-path, 
shut in by misty rain for miles and miles, till she came to 
the place where he was lodging : a farmhouse in Langdale, 
with a steep, stony lane leading up to it. This lane was 
entered by a gate out of the main road, and by the gate 
were a few bushes — thorns ; but of them the leaves had 
fallen, and they offered no concealment ; an old wreck of a 
yew-tree grew among them, however ; and underneath that 
Susan cowered down, shrouding her face, of which the 
colour might betray her, with a corner of her shawl. Long 
did she wait ; cold and cramped she became, too damp and 
stiff to change her posture readily. And after all, he might 
never come! But, she would wait till daylight, if need 
were ; and she pulled out a crust, with which she had pro- 
vidently supplied herself. The rain had ceased — a dull, 
still, brooding weather had succeeded; it was a night to 
hear distant sounds. She heard horses’ hoofs striking and 
splashing in the stones, and in the pools of the road at her 
back. Two horses ; not well-ridden, or evenly guided, as 
she could tell. 

Michael Hurst and a companion drew near; not tipsy, 
but not sober. They stopped at the gate to bid each other 
a maudlin farewell. Michael stooped forward to catch the 
latch with the hook of the stick which he carried ; he dropped 
the stick, and it fell with one end close to Susan — indeed, 
with the slightest change of posture she could have opened 
the gate for him. He swore a great oath, and struck his 
horse with his closed fist, as if that animal had been to 
blame ; then he dismounted, opened the gate, and fumbled 

3i4 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

about for his stick. When he had found it (Susan had 
touched the other end) his first use of it was to flog his 
horse well, and she had much ado to avoid its kicks and 
plunges. Then, still swearing, he staggered up the lane, for 
it was evident he was not sober enough to remount. 

By daylight Susan was back and at her daily labours at Yew 
Nook. When the spring came, Michael Hurst was married 
to Eleanor Hebthwaite. Others, too, were married, and 
christenings made their firesides merry and glad ; or they 
travelled, and came back after long years with many wondrous 
tales. More rarely, perhaps, a Dalesman changed his dwell- 
ing. But to all households more change came than to Yew 
Nook. There the seasons came round with monotonous 
sameness; or, if they brought mutation, it was of a slow, 
and decaying, and depressing kind. Old Peggy died. Her 
silent sympathy, concealed under much roughness, was a 
loss to Susan Dixon. Susan was not yet thirty when this 
happened; but she looked a middle-aged, not to say an 
elderly woman. People affirmed that she had never re- 
covered her complexion since that fever, a dozen years ago, 
which killed her father, and left Will Dixon an idiot. But 
besides her grey sallowness, the lines in her face were 
strong, and deep, and hard. The movements of her eye- 
balls were slow and heavy ; the wrinkles at the corners of 
her mouth and eyes were planted firm and sure; not an 
ounce of unnecessary flesh was there on her bones — every 
muscle started strong and ready for use. She needed all 
this bodily strength, to a degree that no human creature, 
now Peggy was dead, knew of ; for Willie had grown up 
large and strong in body, and, though in general, docile 
enough in mind, every now and then he became first moody, 
and then violent. These paroxysms lasted but a day or 
two ; and it was Susan’s anxious care to keep their very 
existence hidden and unknown. It is true, that occasional 
passers-by on that lonely road heard sounds at night of 
knocking about of furniture, blows, and cries, as of some 
tearing demon within the solitary farmhouse ; but these fits 

3i5 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

of violence usually occurred in the night ; and, whatever had 
been their consequence, Susan had tidied and redded up all 
signs of aught unusual before the morning. For, above all, 
she dreaded lest some one might find out in what danger 
and peril she occasionally was, and might assume a right to 
take away her brother from her care. The one idea of 
taking charge of him had deepened and deepened with years. 
It was graven into her mind as the object for which she 
lived. The sacrifice she had made for this object only 
made it more precious to her. Besides, she separated the 
idea of the docile, affectionate, loutish, indolent Will, and 
kept it distinct from the terror which the demon that occa- 
sionally possessed him inspired her with. The one was her 
flesh and her blood — the child of her dead mother ; the 
other was some fiend who came to torture and convulse the 
creature she so loved. She believed that she fought her 
brother’s battle in holding down those tearing hands, in 
binding, whenever she could, those uplifted restless arms, 
prompt and prone to do mischief. All the time she sub- 
dued him with her cunning or her strength, she spoke to 
him in pitying murmurs, or abused the third person, the 
fiendish enemy, in no unmeasured tones. Towards morning 
the paroxysm was exhausted, and he would fall asleep, 
perhaps only to awaken with evil and renewed vigour. But 
when he was laid down, she would sally out to taste the 
fresh air, and to work off her wild sorrow in cries and 
mutterings to herself. The early labourers saw her gestures 
at a distance, and thought her as crazed as the idiot brother 
who made the neighbourhood a haunted place. But did any 
chance person call at Yew Nook later on in the day, he 
would find Susan Dixon, cold, calm, collected ; her manner 
curt, her wits keen. 

Once this fit of violence lasted longer than usual. Susan’s 
strength both of mind and body was nearly worn out ; she 
wrestled in prayer that somehow it might end before she, 
too, was driven mad ; or, worse, might be obliged to give up 
life’s aim, and consign Willie to a madhouse. From that 

316 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

moment of prayer (as she afterwards superstitiously thought) 
Willie calmed — and then he drooped — and then he sank — 
and, last of all, he died in reality from physical exhaustion. 

But he was so gentle and tender as he lay on his dying 
bed ; such strange, childlike gleams of returning intelligence 
came over his face, long after the power to make his dull, 
inarticulate sounds had departed, that Susan was attracted 
to him by a stronger tie than she had ever felt before. It 
was something to have even an idiot loving her with dumb, 
wistful, animal affection ; something to have any creature 
looking at her with such beseeching eyes, imploring protec- 
tion from the insidious enemy stealing on. And yet she 
knew that to him death was no enemy, but a true friend, 
restoring light and health to his poor clouded mind. It was 
to her that death was an enemy ; to her, the survivor, when 
Willie died ; there was no one to love her. Worse doom 
still, there was no one left on earth for her to love. 

You now know why no wandering tourist could persuade 
her to receive him as a lodger ; why no tired traveller could 
melt her heart to afford him rest and refreshment ; why 
long habits of seclusion had given her a moroseness of 
manner, and how care for the interests of another had 
rendered her keen and miserly. 

But there was a third act in the drama of her life. 


CHAPTER V 

In spite of Peggy’s prophecy that Susan’s life should not 
seem long, it did seem wearisome and endless, as the years 
slowly uncoiled their monotonous circles. To be sure, she 
might have made change for herself ; but she did not care to 
do it. It was, indeed, more than “ not caring,” which merely 
implies a certain degree of vis inertia to be subdued before 
an object can be attained, and that the object itself does not 

S l 7 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

seem to be of sufficient importance to call out the requisite 
energy. On the contrary, Susan exerted herself to avoid 
change and variety. She had a morbid dread of new faces, 
which originated in her desire to keep poor dead Willie’s 
state a profound secret. She had a contempt for new 
customs ; and, indeed, her old ways prospered so well under 
her active hand and vigilant eye, that it was difficult to know 
how they could be improved upon. She was regularly 
present in Coniston market with the best butter and the 
earliest chickens of the season. Those were the common 
farm produce that every farmer’s wife about had to sell ; but 
Susan, after she had disposed of the more feminine articles, 
turned to on the man’s side. A better judge of a horse or 
cow there was not in all the country round. Yorkshire itself 
might have attempted to jockey her, and would have failed. 
Her corn was sound and clean ; her potatoes well preserved 
to the latest spring. People began to talk of the hoards of 
money Susan Dixon must have laid up somewhere ; and one 
young ne’er-do-weel of a farmer’s son undertook to make 
love to the woman of forty, who looked fifty-five, if a day. 
He made up to her by opening a gate on the road-path home, 
as she was riding on a bare-backed horse, her purchase not 
an hour ago. She was off before him, refusing his civility ; 
but the remounting was not so easy, and rather than fail she 
did not choose to attempt it. She walked, and he walked 
alongside, improving his opportunity, which, as he vainly 
thought, had been consciously granted to him. As they 
drew near Yew Nook, he ventured on some expression of a 
wish to keep company with her. His words were vague 
and clumsily arranged. Susan turned round and coolly 
asked him to explain himself. He took courage as he 
thought of her reputed wealth, and expressed his wishes this 
second time pretty plainly. To his surprise, the reply she 
made was in a series of smart strokes across his shoulders, 
administered through the medium of a supple hazel-switch. 

“ Take that ! ” said she, almost breathless, “ to teach thee 
how thou darest make a fool of an honest woman old enough 

3i8 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

to be thy mother. If thou com’st a step nearer the house, 
there's a good horse-pool, and there’s two stout fellows 
who’ll like no better fun than ducking thee. Be off wi’ 
thee I ” 

And she strode into her own premises, never looking 
round to see whether he obeyed her injunction or not. 

Sometimes three or four years would pass over without 
her hearing Michael Hurst’s name mentioned. She used to 
wonder at such times whether he were dead or alive. She 
would sit for hours by the dying embers of her fire on a 
winter’s evening, trying to recall the scenes of her youth ; 
trying to bring up living pictures of the faces she had then 
known — Michael’s most especially. She thought it was 
possible, so long had been the lapse of years, that she might 
now pass by him in the street unknowing and unknown. 
His outward form she might not recognise, but himself she 
should feel in the thrill of her whole being. He could not 
pass her unawares. 

What little she did hear about him, all testified a down- 
ward tendency. He drank — not at stated times when there 
was no other work to be done, but continually, whether it 
was seed-time or harvest. His children were all ill at the 
same time ; then one died, while the others recovered, but 
were poor, sickly things. No one dared to give Susan any 
direct intelligence of her former lover ; many avoided all 
mention of his name in her presence ; but a few spoke out 
either in indifference to, or ignorance of, those bygone days. 
Susan heard every word, every whisper, every sound that 
related to him. But her eye never changed, nor did a 
muscle of her face move. 

Late one November night she sat over her fire, not a 
human being besides herself in the house ; none but she had 
ever slept there since Willie’s death. The farm -labourers 
had foddered the cattle and gone home hours before. There 
were crickets chirping all round the warm hearth-stones ; 
there was the clock ticking with the peculiar beat Susan 
had known from her childhood, and which then and ever 

319 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

since she had oddly associated with the idea of a mother 
and child talking together, one loud tick, and quick — a feeble, 
sharp one following. 

The day had been keen, and piercingly cold. The whole 
lift of heaven seemed a dome of iron. Black and frost- 
bound was the earth under the cruel east wind. Now the 
wind had dropped ; and, as the darkness had gathered in, the 
weather-wise old labourers prophesied snow. The sounds 
in the air arose again, as Susan sat still and silent. They 
were of a different character to what they had been during 
the prevalence of the east wind. Then they had been shrill 
and piping ; now they were like low distant growling ; not 
unmusical, but strangely threatening. Susan went to the 
window, and drew aside the little curtain. The whole world 
was white — the air was blinded with the swift and heavy 
fall of snow. At present it came down straight ; but Susan 
knew those distant sounds in the hollows and gullies of the 
hills portended a driving wind and a more cruel storm. She 
thought of her sheep ; were they all folded ? the new-born 
calf, was it bedded well ? Before the drifts were formed too 
deep for her to pass in and out — and by the morning she 
judged that they would be six or seven feet deep — she would 
go out and see after the comfort of her beasts. She took a 
lantern, and tied a shawl over her head, and went out into 
the open air. She had tenderly provided for all her animals, 
and was returning, when, borne on the blast as if some 
spirit- cry — for it seemed to come rather down from the 
skies than from any creature standing on earth’s level — she 
heard a voice of agony ; she could not distinguish words ; 
it seemed rather as if some bird of prey was being caught 
in the whirl of the icy wind, and torn and tortured by its 
violence. Again ! up high above ! Susan put down her 
lantern, and shouted loud in return ; it was an instinct, for, 
if the creature were not human, which she had doubted but 
a moment before, what good could her responding cry do ? 
And her cry was seized on by the tyrannous wind, and borne 
farther away in the opposite direction to that from which 

320 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

the call of agony had proceeded. Again she listened : no 
sound; then again it rang through space, and this time 
she was sure it was human. She turned into the house, and 
heaped turf and wood on the fire, which, careless of her 
own sensations, she had allowed to fade and almost die 
out. She put a new candle in her lantern ; she changed 
her shawl for a maud, and leaving the door on latch, 
she sallied out. Just at the moment when her ear first 
encountered the weird noises of the storm, on issuing forth 
into the open air, she thought she heard the words, “ Oh, 
God ! Oh, help ! ” They were a guide to her — if words they 
were, for they came straight from a rock not a quarter of a 
mile from Yew Nook, but only to be reached, on account of 
its precipitous character, by a round-about path. Thither 
she steered, defying wind and snow ; guided by here a 
thorn-tree, there an old, doddered oak, which had not quite 
lost their identity under the whelming mask of snow. Now 
and then she stopped to listen ; but never a word or sound 
heard she, till, right from where the copse-wood grew thick 
and tangled at the base of the rock, round which she was 
winding, she heard a moan. Into the brake — all snow in 
appearance — almost a plain of snow, looked on from the 
little eminence where she stood — she plunged, breaking 
down the bush, stumbling, bruising herself, fighting her 
way, her lantern held between her teeth, and she herself 
using head as well as hands to butt away a passage, at 
whatever cost of bodily injury. As she climbed or staggered, 
owing to the unevenness of the snow-covered ground where 
the briars and weeds of years were tangled and matted 
together, her foot felt something strangely soft and yielding. 
She lowered her lantern; there lay a man, prone on his 
face, nearly covered by the fast-falling flakes ; he must have 
fallen from the rock above, as, not knowing of the circuitous 
path, he had tried to descend its steep, slippery face. Who 
could tell ? it was no time for thinking. Susan lifted him 
up with her wiry strength; he gave no help — no sign of 
life ; but for all that he might be alive : he was still warm ; 

3 21 y 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

she tied her maud round him ; she fastened the lantern to 
her apron-string; she held him tight, half-carrying, half- 
dragging — what did a few bruises signify to him, compared 
to dear life, to precious life ! She got him through the 
brake, and down the path. There, for an instant, she 
stopped to take breath; but, as if stung by the Furies, 
she pushed on again with almost superhuman strength. 
Clasping him round the waist, and leaning his dead weight 
against the lintel of the door, she tried to undo the latch ; 
but now, just at this moment, a trembling faintness came 
over her, and a fearful dread took possession of her — that 
here, on the very threshold of her home, she might be 
found dead, and buried under the snow, when the farm- 
servants came in the morning. This terror stirred her up 
to one more effort. Then she and her companion were in 
the warmth of the quiet haven of that kitchen; she laid 
him on the settle, and sank on the floor by his side. How 
long she remained in this swoon she could not tell — not very 
long, she judged by the fire, which was still red and sullenly 
glowing when she came to herself. She lighted the candle, 
and bent over her late burden to ascertain if indeed he were 
dead. She stood long gazing. The man lay dead. There 
could be no doubt about it. His filmy eyes glared at her, 
unshut. But Susan was not one to be affrighted by the 
stony aspect of death. It was not that ; it was the bitter, 
woeful recognition of Michael Hurst ! 

She was convinced he was dead ; but after a while she 
refused to believe in her conviction. She stripped off his 
wet outer-garments with trembling, hurried hands. She 
brought a blanket down from her own bed; she made up 
the fire. She swathed him in fresh, warm wrappings, and 
laid him on the flags before the fire, sitting herself at his 
head, and holding it in her lap, while she tenderly wiped 
his loose, wet hair, curly still, although its colour had 
changed from nut-brown to iron-grey since she had seen 
it last. From time to time she bent over the face afresh ; 
sick, and fain to believe that the flicker of the fire-light 

322 


Haff a Lifetime Ago 

was some slight convulsive motion. But the dim, staring 
eyes struck chill to her heart. At last she ceased her 
delicate, busy cares; but she still held the head softly, as 
if caressing it. She thought over all the possibilities and 
chances in the mingled yam of their lives that might, by 
so slight a turn, have ended far otherwise. If her mother’s 
cold had been early tended, so that the responsibility as to 
her brother’s weal or woe had not fallen upon her; if the 
fever had not taken such rough, cruel hold on Will; nay, 
if Mrs. Gale, that hard, worldly sister, had not accompanied 
him on his last visit to Yew Nook — his very last before 
this fatal, stormy night; if she had heard his cry, — cry 
uttered by those pale, dead lips with such wild, despairing 
agony, not yet three hours ago ! — Oh ! if she had but heard 
it sooner, he might have been saved before that blind, false 
step had precipitated him down the rock ! In going over 
this weary chain of unrealised possibilities, Susan learnt 
the force of Peggy’s words. Life was short, looking back 
upon it. It seemed but yesterday since all the love of her 
being had been poured out, and run to waste. The inter- 
vening years — the long monotonous years that had turned 
her into an old woman before her time — were but a dream. 

The labourers coming in the dawn of the winter’s day 
were surprised to see the fire-light through the low kitchen- 
window. They knocked ; and, hearing a moaning answer, 
they entered, fearing that something had befallen their 
mistress. For all explanation they got these words — 

“It is Michael Hurst. He was belated, and fell down 
the Raven’s Crag. Where does Eleanor, his wife, live ? ” 
How Michael Hurst got to Yew Nook no one but Susan 
ever knew. They thought he had dragged himself there, 
with some sore internal bruise sapping away his minuted 
life. They could not have believed the superhuman exertion 
which had first sought him out, and then dragged him 
hither. Only Susan knew of that. 

She gave him into the charge of her servants, and went 
out and saddled her horse. Where the wind had drifted 

323 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

the snow on one side, and the road was clear and bare, 
she rode, and rode fast; where the soft, deceitful heaps 
were massed up, she dismounted and led her steed, plunging 
in deep, with fierce energy, the pain at her heart urging 
her onwards with a sharp, digging spur. 

The grey, solemn, winter’s noon was more night-like 
than the depth of summer’s night ; dim-purple brooded the 
low skies over the white earth, as Susan rode up to what 
had been Michael Hurst’s abode while living. It was a 
small farmhouse — carelessly kept outside, slatternly tended 
within. The pretty Nelly Hebthwaite was pretty still ; her 
delicate face had never suffered from any long-enduring 
feeling. If anything, its expression was that of plaintive 
sorrow; but the soft, light hair had scarcely a tinge of 
grey; the wood-rose tint of complexion yet remained, if 
not so brilliant as in youth ; the straight nose, the small 
mouth were untouched by time. Susan felt the contrast 
even at that moment. She knew that her own skin was 
weather-beaten, furrowed, brown — that her teeth were gone, 
and her hair grey and ragged. And yet she was not two 
years older than Nelly — she had not been, in youth, when 
she took account of these things. Nelly stood wondering 
at the strange- enough horsewoman, who stopped and panted 
at the door, holding her horse’s bridle, and refusing to enter. 

“ Where is Michael Hurst ? ” asked Susan at last. 

“Well, I can’t rightly say. He should have been at 
home last night ; but he was off, seeing after a public-house 
to be let at Ulverstone, for our farm does not answer, and 
we were thinking ” 

“ He did not come home last night ? ” said Susan, cutting 
short the story, and half-affirming, half-questioning, by way 
of letting in a ray of the awful light before she let it full in, 
in its consuming wrath. 

“ No ! he’ll be stopping somewhere out Ulverstone ways. 
I’m sure we’ve need of him at home, for I’ve no one but lile 
Tommy to help me tend the beasts. Things have not gone 
well with us, and we don’t keep a servant now. But you’re 

3 2 4 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

trembling all over, ma’am. You’d better come in, and take 
something warm, while your horse rests. That’s the stable- 
door, to your left.” 

Susan took her horse there; loosened his girths, and 
rubbed him down with a wisp of straw. Then she looked 
about her for hay ; but the place was bare of food, and smelt 
damp and unused. She went to the house, thankful for the 
respite, and got some clap-bread, which she mashed up in a 
pailful of luke-warm water. Every moment was a respite, 
and yet every moment made her dread the more the task 
that lay before her. It would be longer than she thought at 
first. She took the saddle off, and hung about her horse, 
which seemed, somehow, more like a friend than anything 
else in the world. She laid her cheek against its neck, and 
rested there, before returning to the house for the last 
time. 

Eleanor had brought down one of her own gowns, which 
hung on a chair against the fire, and had made her unknown 
visitor a cup of hot tea. Susan could hardly bear all these 
little attentions : they choked her, and yet she was so 
wet, so weak with fatigue and excitement, that she could 
neither resist by voice nor by action. Two children stood 
awkwardly about, puzzled at the scene, and even Eleanor 
began to wish for some explanation of who her strange 
visitor was. 

“ You’ve, may be, heard him speaking of me ? I’m 
called Susan Dixon.” 

Nelly coloured, and avoided meeting Susan’s eye. 

“ I’ve heard other folk speak of you. He never named 
your name.” 

This respect of silence came like balm to Susan : balm 
not felt or heeded at the time it was applied, but very 
grateful in its effects for all that. 

“ He is at my house,” continued Susan, determined not 
to stop or quaver in the operation — the pain which must be 
inflicted. 

“ At your house ? Yew Nook ? ” questioned Eleanor, 

325 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

surprised. “ How came he there ? ” — half jealously. “ Did 
he take shelter from the coming storm ? Tell me, — there is 
something — tell me, woman ! ” 

“ He took no shelter. Would to God he had ! ” 

“ Oh ! would to God ! would to God ! ” shrieked out 
Eleanor, learning all from the woeful import of those 
dreary eyes. Her cries thrilled through the house ; the 
children’s piping wailings and passionate cries on “ Daddy ! 
Daddy ! ” pierced into Susan’s very marrow. But she 
remained as still and tearless as the great round face upon 
the clock. 

At last, in a lull of crying, she said — not exactly ques- 
tioning, but as if partly to herself — 

“ You loved him, then ? ” 

“ Loved him ! he was my husband ! He was the father 
of three bonny bairns that lie dead in Grasmere churchyard. 
I wish you’d go, Susan Dixon, and let me weep without 
your watching me ! I wish you’d never come near the 
place.” 

“ Alas ! alas ! it would not have brought him to life. I 
would have laid down my own to save his. My life has been 
so very sad ! No one would have cared if I had died. 
Alas ! alas ! ” 

The tone in which she said this was so utterly mournful 
and despairing that it awed Nelly into quiet for a time. But 
by-and-by she said, “ I would not turn a dog out to do it 
harm ; but the night is clear, and Tommy shall guide you to 
the Bed Cow. But, oh, I want to be alone ! If you’ll come 
back to-morrow, I’ll be better, and I’ll hear all, and thank 
you for every kindness you have shown him — and I do 
believe you’ve showed him kindness — though I don’t know 
why.” 

Susan moved heavily and strangely. 

She said something — her words came thick and unintelli- 
gible. She had had a paralytic stroke since she had last 
spoken. She could not go, even if she would. Nor did 
Eleanor, when she became aware of the state of the case, 

326 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

wish her to leave. She had her laid on her own bed ; and, 
weeping silently all the while for her lost husband, she 
nursed Susan like a sister. She did not know what her 
guest s worldly position might be ; and she might never be 
repaid. But she sold many a little trifle to purchase such 
small comforts as Susan needed. Susan, lying still and 
motionless, learnt much. It was not a severe stroke; it 
might be the forerunner of others yet to come, but at some 
distance of time. But for the present she recovered, and 
regained much of her former health. On her sick-bed she 
matured her plans. When she returned to Yew Nook, she 
took Michael Hurst’s widow and children with her to live 
there, and fill up the haunted hearth with living forms, that 
should banish the ghosts. 

And so it fell out that the latter days of Susan Dixon’s 
life were better than the former. 


When this narrative was finished, Mrs. Dawson called on 
our two gentlemen, Signor Sperano and Mr. Preston, and 
told them that they had hitherto been amused or interested, 
but that it was now their turn to amuse or interest. They 
looked at each other as if this application of hers took them 
by surprise, and seemed altogether as much abashed as well- 
grown men can ever be. Signor Sperano was the first to 
recover himself : after thinking a little, he said — 

“ Your will, dear lady, is law. Next Monday evening, I 
will bring you an old, old story, which I found among the 
papers of the good old priest who first welcomed me to 
England. It was but a poor return for his generous kind- 
ness ; but I had the opportunity of nursing him through the 
cholera, of which he died. He left me all that he had — no 
money — but his scanty furniture, his book of prayers, his 
crucifix and rosary, and his papers. How some of those 
papers came into his hands I know not. They had evidently 
been written many years before the venerable man was born ; 
and I doubt whether he had ever examined the bundles, 

3 2 7 


Half a Lifetime Ago 

which had come down to him from some old ancestor, or in 
some strange bequest. His life was too busy to leave any 
time for the gratification of mere curiosity; I, alas! have 
only had too much leisure.” 

Next Monday, Signor Sperano read to us the story which 
I will call — • 

“ The Poor Clare " 


328 


THE POOR CLARE 


CHAPTEK I 

December 12th, 1747. — My life has been strangely bound 
up with extraordinary incidents, some of which occurred 
before I had any connection with the principal actors in 
them, or, indeed, before I even knew of their existence. I 
suppose, most old men are, like me, more given to looking 
back upon their own career with a kind of fond interest and 
affectionate remembrance than to watching the events — 
though these may have far more interest for the multitude — 
immediately passing before their eyes. If this should be the 
case with the generality of old people, how much more so 
with me ! ... If I am to enter upon that strange story 
connected with poor Lucy, I must begin a long way back. 
I myself only came to the knowledge of her family history 
after I knew her ; but, to make the tale clear to any one else, 
I must arrange events in the order in which they occurred 
— not that in which I became acquainted with them. 

There is a great old hall in the north-east of Lancashire, 
in a part they called the Trough of Bolland, adjoining that 
other district named Craven. Starkey Manor-house is rather 
like a number of rooms clustered round a grey, massive, old 
keep than a regularly-built hall. Indeed, I suppose that the 
house only consisted of a great tower in the centre, in the 
days when the Scots made their raids terrible as far south as 
this ; and that after the Stuarts came in, and there was a 
little more security of property in those parts, the Starkeys 

329 


The Poor Clare 

of that time added the lower building, which runs, two storeys 
high, all round the base of the keep. There has been a grand 
garden laid out in my days, on the southern slope near the 
house ; but when I first knew the place, the kitchen garden 
at the farm was the only piece of cultivated ground belong- 
ing to it. The deer used to come within sight of the draw- 
ing-room windows, and might have browsed quite close up to 
the house if they had not been too wild and shy. Starkey 
Manor-house itself stood on a projection or peninsula of high 
land, jutting out from the abrupt hills that form the sides of 
the Trough of Bolland. These hills were rocky and bleak 
enough towards their summit ; lower down they were clothed 
with tangled copsewood and green depths of fern, out of 
which a grey giant of an ancient forest-tree would tower here 
and there, throwing up its ghastly white branches, as if in 
imprecation, to the sky. These trees, they told me, were the 
remnants of that forest which existed in the days of the 
Heptarchy, and were even then noted as landmarks. No 
wonder that their upper and more exposed branches were 
leafless, and that the dead bark had peeled away, from sap- 
less old age. 

Not far from the house there were a few cottages, 
apparently of the same date as the keep ; probably built 
for some retainers of the family, who sought shelter — they 
and their families and their small flocks and herds — at the 
hands of their feudal lord. Some of them had pretty much 
fallen to decay. They were built in a strange fashion. 
Strong beams had been sunk firm in the ground at the 
requisite distance, and their other ends had been fastened 
together, two and two, so as to form the shape of one of 
those rounded waggon-headed gipsy-tents, only very much 
larger. The spaces between were filled with mud, stones, 
osiers, rubbish, mortar —anything to keep out the weather. 
The fires were made in the centre of these rude dwellings, a 
hole in the roof forming the only chimney. No Highland 
hut or Irish cabin could be of rougher construction. 

The owner of this property at the beginning of the 
330 


The Poor Clare 

present century, was a Mr. Patrick Byrne Starkey. His 
family had kept to the old faith, and were staunch Roman 
Catholics, esteeming it even a sin to marry any one of 
Protestant descent, however willing he or she might have 
been to embrace the Romish religion. Mr. Patrick Starkey’s 
father had been a follower of James the Second ; and 
during the disastrous campaign of that monarch he had 
fallen in love with an Irish beauty, a Miss Byrne, as zealous 
for her religion and for the Stuarts as himself. He had 
returned to Ireland after his escape to France, and married 
her, bearing her back to the court at St. Germains. But 
some license, on the part of the disorderly gentlemen who 
surrounded King James in his exile, had insulted his beautiful 
wife, and disgusted him ; so he removed from St. Germains 
to Antwerp, whence, in a few years’ time, he quietly returned 
to Starkey Manor-house — some of his Lancashire neighbours 
having lent their good offices to reconcile him to the powers 
that were. He was as firm a Catholic as ever, and as 
staunch an advocate for the Stuarts and the divine rights 
of kings ; but his religion almost amounted to asceticism, 
and the conduct of those with whom he had been brought 
in such close contact at St. Germains would little bear the 
inspection of a stern moralist. So he gave his allegiance 
where he could not give his esteem, and learned to respect 
sincerely the upright and moral character of one whom he 
yet regarded as an usurper. King William’s government 
had little need to fear such a one. So he returned, as I 
have said, with a sobered heart and impoverished fortunes, 
to his ancestral house, which had fallen sadly to ruin while the 
owner had been a courtier, a soldier, and an exile. The roads 
into the Trough of Bolland were little more than cart-ruts ; 
indeed, the way up to the house lay along a ploughed field 
before you came to the deer-park. Madam, as the country- 
folk used to call Mrs. Starkey, rode on a pillion behind her 
husband, holding on to him with a light hand by his leather 
riding-belt. Little master (he that was afterwards Squire 
Patrick Byrne Starkey) was held on to his pony by a 

33i 


The Poor Clare 

serving-man. A woman past middle age walked, with a 
firm and strong step, by the cart that held much of the 
baggage ; and, high up on the mails and boxes, sat a girl of 
dazzling beauty, perched lightly on the topmost trunk, and 
swaying herself fearlessly to and fro, as the cart rocked and 
shook in the heavy roads of late autumn. The girl wore 
the Antwerp faille , or black Spanish mantle, over her head ; 
and altogether her appearance was such that the old cottager, 
who described the possession to me many years after, said 
that all the country-folk took her for a foreigner. Some 
dogs, and the boy who held them in charge, made up the 
company. They rode silently along, looking with grave, 
serious eyes at the people, who came out of the scattered 
cottages to bow or curtsey to the real Squire, “ come back 
at last,” and gazed after the little procession with gaping 
wonder, not deadened by the sound of the foreign language 
in which the few necessary words that passed among them 
were spoken. One lad, called from his staring by the Squire 
to come and help about the cart, accompanied them to the 
Manor-house. He said that when the lady had descended 
from her pillion, the middle-aged woman whom I have 
described as walking while the others rode, stepped quickly 
forward ; and, taking Madame Starkey (who was of a slight 
and delicate figure) in her arms, she lifted her over the 
threshold, and set her down in her husband’s house, at the 
same time uttering a passionate and outlandish blessing. 
The Squire stood by, smiling gravely at first ; but when the 
words of blessing were pronounced, he took off his fine 
feathered hat and bent his head. The girl with the black 
mantle stepped onward into the shadow of the dark hall, and 
kissed the lady’s hand ; and that was all the lad could tell to 
the group that gathered round him on his return, eager to 
hear everything, and to know how much the Squire had 
given him for his services. 

From all I could gather, the Manor-house, at the time of 
the Squire’s return, was in the most dilapidated state. The 
Stout grey walls remained firm and entire; but the inner 

33 2 


The Poor Clare 

chambers had been used for all kinds of purposes. The 
great withdrawing-room had been a bam ; the state tapestry- 
chamber had held wool, and so on. But, by-and-by, they 
were cleared out ; and, if the Squire had no money to spend 
on new furniture, he and his wife had the knack of making 
the best of the old. He was no despicable joiner ; she had 
a kind of grace in whatever she did, and imparted an air of 
elegant picturesqueness to whatever she touched. Besides, 
they had brought many rare things from the Continent; 
perhaps I should rather say, things that were rare in that 
part of England — carvings, and crosses, and beautiful 
pictures. And then, again, wood was plentiful in the Trough 
of Bolland, and great log-fires danced and glittered in all the 
dark, old rooms, and gave a look of home and comfort to 
everything. 

Why do I tell you all this ? I have little to do with the 
Squire and Madame Starkey; and yet I dwell upon them, 
as if I were unwilling to come to the real people with whom 
my life was so strangely mixed up. Madam had been nursed 
in Ireland by the very woman who lifted her in her arms, 
and welcomed her to her husband’s home in Lancashire. 
Excepting for the short period of her own married life, 
Bridget Eitzgerald had never left her nursling. Her mar- 
riage — to one above her in rank — had been unhappy. Her 
husband had died, and left her in even greater poverty than 
that in which she was when he had first met with her. She 
had one child, the beautiful daughter who came riding on the 
waggon-load of furniture that was brought to the Manor- 
house. Madame Starkey had taken her again into her 
service when she became a widow. She and her daughter 
had followed “ the mistress ” in all her fortunes ; they had 
lived at St. Germains and at Antwerp, and were now come 
to her home in Lancashire. As soon as Bridget had arrived 
there, the Squire gave her a cottage of her own, and took more 
pains in furnishing it for her than he did in anything else 
out of his own house. It was only nominally her residence. 
She was constantly up at the great house ; indeed, it was 

333 


The Poor Clare 

but a short cut across the woods from her own home to the 
home of her nursling. Her daughter Mary, in like manner, 
moved from one house to the other at her own will. Madam 
loved both mother and child dearly. They had great in- 
fluence over her and, through her, over her husband. 
Whatever Bridget or Mary willed was sure to come to 
pass. They were not disliked; for though wild and pas- 
sionate, they were also generous by nature. But the other 
servants were afraid of them, as being in secret the ruling 
spirits of the household. The Squire had lost his interest in 
all secular things ; Madam was gentle, affectionate, and 
yielding. Both husband and wife were tenderly attached 
to each other and to their boy; but they grew more and 
more to shun the trouble of decision on any point; and 
hence it was that Bridget could exert such despotic power. 
But, if every one else yielded to her “ magic of a superior 
mind,” her daughter not unfrequently rebelled. She and 
her mother were too much alike to agree. There were wild 
quarrels between them, and wilder reconciliations. There 
were times when, in the heat of passion, they could have 
stabbed each other. At all other times they both — Bridget 
especially — would have willingly laid down their lives for 
one another. Bridget’s love for her child lay .very deep — 
— deeper than that daughter ever knew ; or, I should think, 
she would never have wearied of home as she did, and prayed 
her mistress to obtain for her some situation — as waiting- 
maid — beyond the seas, in that more cheerful continental 
life, among the scenes of which so many of her happiest 
years had been spent. She thought, as youth thinks, that 
life would last for ever, and that two or three years were but 
a small portion of it to pass away from her mother, whose 
only child she was. Bridget thought differently, but was too 
proud ever to show what she felt. If her child wished to 
leave her, why — she should go. But people said Bridget 
became ten years older in the course of two months at this 
time. She took it that Mary wanted to leave her. The 
truth was that Mary wanted for a time to leave the place, 

334 


The Poor Clare 

and to seek some change, and would thankfully have taken 
her mother with her. Indeed, when Madame Starkey had 
gotten her a situation with some grand lady abroad, and the 
time drew near for her to go, it was Mary who clung to her 
mother with passionate embrace, and, with floods of tears, 
declared that she would never leave her ; and it was Bridget 
who at last loosened her arms, and, grave and tearless 
herself, bade her keep her word, and go forth into the wide 
world. Sobbing aloud, and looking back continually, Mary 
went away. Bridget was still as death, scarcely drawing 
her breath, or closing her stony eyes ; till at last she turned 
back into her cottage, and heaved a ponderous old settle 
against the door. There she sat, motionless, over the grey 
ashes of her extinguished fire, deaf to Madam’s sweet voice, 
as she begged leave to enter and comfort her nurse. Deaf, 
stony, and motionless, she sat for more than twenty hours ; 
till, for the third time, Madam came across the snowy path 
from the great house carrying with her a young spaniel, which 
had been Mary’s pet up at the hall, and which had not ceased 
all night long to seek for its absent mistress, and to whine 
and moan after her. With tears Madam told this story, 
through the closed door — tears excited by the terrible look of 
anguish, so steady, so immovable, so the same to-day as it 
was yesterday — on her nurse’s face. The little creature in 
her arms began to utter its piteous cry, as it shivered with 
the cold. Bridget stirred ; she moved — she listened. Again 
that long whine ; she thought it was for her daughter ; and 
what she had denied to her nursling and mistress she 
granted to the dumb creature that Mary had cherished. She 
opened the door, and took the dog from Madam’s arms. 
Then Madam came in, and kissed and comforted the old 
woman, who took but little notice of her or anything. And, 
sending up Master Patrick to the hall for fire and food, the 
sweet young lady never left her nurse all that night. Next 
day the Squire himself came down, carrying a beautiful 
foreign picture — Our Lady of the Holy Heart, the Papists 
call it. It is a picture of the Virgin, her heart pierced with 

335 


The Poor Clare 

arrows, each arrow representing one of her great woes. That 
picture hung in Bridget’s cottage when I first saw her; I 
have that picture now. 

Years went on. Mary was still abroad. Bridget was 
still and stern, instead of active and passionate. The little 
dog, Mignon, was indeed her darling. I have heard that she 
talked to it continually ; although, to most people, she was 
so silent. The Squire and Madam treated her with the 
greatest consideration, and well they might ; for to them she 
was as devoted and faithful as ever. Mary wrote pretty 
often, and seemed satisfied with her life. But at length the 
letters ceased — I hardly know whether before or after a great 
and terrible sorrow came upon the house of the Starkeys. 
The Squire sickened of a putrid fever ; and Madam caught it 
in nursing him, and died. You may be sure, Bridget let no 
other woman tend her but herself ; and in the very arms 
that had received her at her birth, that sweet young woman 
laid her head down, and gave up her breath. The Squire 
recovered, in a fashion. He was never strong — he had never 
the heart to smile again. He fasted and prayed more than 
ever ; and people did say that he tried to cut off the entail, 
and leave all the property away to found a monastery abroad, 
of which he prayed that some day little Squire Patrick might 
be the reverend father. But he could not do this, for the 
strictness of the entail and the laws against the Papists. So 
he could only appoint gentlemen of his own faith as guardians 
to his son, with many charges about the lad’s soul, and a few 
about the land, and the way it was to be held while he was 
a minor. Of course, Bridget was not forgotten. He sent 
for her as he lay on his death-bed, and asked her if she 
would rather have a sum down, or have a small annuity 
settled upon her. She said at once she would have a sum 
down ; for she thought of her daughter, and how she could 
bequeath the money to her, whereas an annuity would have 
died with her. So the Squire left her her cottage for life, and 
a fair sum of money. And then he died, with as ready and 
willing a heart as, I suppose, ever any gentleman took out of 

336 


The Poor Clare 

this world with him. The young Squire was carried off by 
his guardians, and Bridget was left alone. 

I have said that she had not heard from Mary for some 
time. In her last letter, she had told of travelling about with 
her mistress, who was the English wife of some great foreign 
officer, and had spoken of her chances of making a good 
marriage, without naming the gentleman’s name, keeping it 
rather back as a pleasant surprise to her mother ; his station 
and fortune being, as I had afterwards reason to know, far 
superior to anything she had a right to expect. Then came 
a long silence ; and Madam was dead, and the Squire was 
dead ; and Bridget’s heart was gnawed by anxiety, and she 
knew not whom to ask for news of her child. She could not 
write, and the Squire had managed her communication with 
her daughter. She walked off to Hurst ; and got a good 
priest there — one whom she had known at Antwerp — to 
write for her. But no answer came. It was like crying into 
the awful stillness of night. 

One day, Bridget was missed by those neighbours who 
had been accustomed to mark her goings-out and comings- 
in. She had never been sociable with any of them ; but the 
sight of her had become a part of their daily lives, and slow 
wonder arose in their minds, as morning after morning came, 
and her house-door remained closed, her window dead from 
any glitter, or light of fire within. At length, some one tried 
the door; it was locked. Two or three laid their heads 
together, before daring to look in through the blank un- 
shuttered window. But, at last, they summoned up courage, 
and then saw that Bridget’s absence from their little world 
was not the result of accident or death, but of premeditation. 
Such small articles of furniture as could be secured from the 
effects of time and damp by being packed up, were stowed 
away in boxes. The picture of the Madonna was taken 
down, and gone. In a word, Bridget had stolen away from 
her home, and left no trace whither she was departed. I 
knew afterwards, that she and her little dog had wandered 
off on the long search for her lost daughter. She was too 

337 z 


The Poor Clare 

illiterate to have faith in letters, even had she had the means 
of writing and sending many. But she had faith in her own 
strong love, and believed that her passionate instinct would 
guide her to her child. Besides, foreign travel was no new 
thing to her, and she could speak enough of French to 
explain the object of her journey, and had, moreover, the 
advantage of being, from her faith, a welcome object of 
charitable hospitality at many a distant convent. But the 
country people round Starkey Manor-house knew nothing 
of all this. They wondered what had become of her, in a 
torpid, lazy fashion, and then left off thinking of her alto- 
gether. Several years passed. Both Manor-house and 
cottage were deserted. The young Squire lived far away 
under the direction of his guardians. There were inroads of 
wool and corn into the sitting-rooms of the Hall ; and there 
was some low talk, from time to time, among the hinds and 
country people, whether it would not be as well to break into 
old Bridget’s cottage, and save such of her goods as were left 
from the moth and rust which must be making sad havoc. 
But this idea was always quenched by the recollection of her 
strong character and passionate anger ; and tales of her 
masterful spirit, and vehement force of will, were whispered 
about, till the very thought of offending her, by touching 
any article of hers, became invested with a kind of horror : 
it was believed that, dead or alive, she would not fail to 
avenge it. 

Suddenly she came home ; with as little noise or note of 
preparation as she had departed. One day some one noticed 
a thin, blue curl of smoke ascending from her chimney. 
Her door stood open to the noonday sun ; and, ere many 
hours had elapsed, some one had seen an old travel-and- 
sorrow-stained woman, dipping her pitcher in the well, and 
said, that the dark, solemn eyes that looked up at him were 
more like Bridget Fitzgerald’s than any one else’s in this 
world ; and yet, if it were she, she looked as if she had been 
scorched in the flames of hell, so brown, and scared, and 
fierce a creature did she seem. By and-by many saw her ; 

33S 


The Poor Clare 

and those who met her eye once cared not to be caught look- 
ing at her again. She had got into the habit of perpetually 
talking to herself ; nay, more, answering herself, and varying 
her tones according to the side she took at the moment. It 
was no wonder that those who dared to listen outside her 
door at night believed that she held converse with some 
spirit ; in short, she was unconsciously earning for herself 
the dreadful reputation of a witch. 

Her little dog, which had wandered half over the Con- 
tinent with her, was her only companion : a dumb remem- 
brancer of happier days. Once he was ill ; and she carried 
him more than three miles, to ask about his management 
from one who had been groom to the last Squire, and had 
then been noted for his skill in all diseases of animals. 
Whatever this man did, the dog recovered ; and they who 
heard her thanks, intermingled with blessings (that were 
rather promises of good fortune than prayers), looked grave 
at his good luck when, next year, his ewes twinned, and his 
meadow-grass was heavy and thick. 

Now it so happened that, about the year seventeen 
hundred and eleven, one of the guardians of the young 
squire, a certain Sir Philip Tempest, bethought him of the 
good shooting there must be on his ward’s property ; and in 
consequence he brought down four or five gentlemen, of his 
friends, to stay for a week or two at the hall. Prom all 
accounts, they roystered and spent pretty freely. I never 
heard any of their names but one, and that was Squire 
Gisborne’s. He was hardly a middle-aged man then ; he 
had been much abroad ; and there, I believe, he had known 
Sir Philip Tempest, and done him some service. He was 
a daring and dissolute fellow in those days : careless and 
fearless, and one who would rather be in a quarrel than out 
of it. He had his fits of ill-temper besides, when he would 
spare neither man nor beast. Otherwise, those who knew 
him well, used to say he had a good heart, when he was 
neither drunk, nor angry, nor in any way vexed. He had 
altered much when I came to know him. 

339 


The Poor Clare 

One day, the gentlemen had all been out shooting, and 
with but little success, I believe ; anyhow, Mr. Gisborne had 
none, and was in a black humour accordingly. He was 
coming home, having his gun loaded, sportsman-like, when 
little Mignon crossed his path, just as he turned out of the 
wood by Bridget’s cottage. Partly for wantonness, partly 
to vent his spleen upon some living creature, Mr. Gisborne 
took his gun, and fired — he had better have never fired gun 
again, than aimed that unlucky shot: he hit Mignon, and 
at the creature’s sudden cry, Bridget came out, and saw at a 
glance what had been done. She took Mignon up in her 
arms, and looked hard at the wound; the poor dog looked 
at her with his glazing eyes, and tried to wag his tail and 
lick her hand, all covered with blood. Mr. Gisborne spoke 
in a kind of sullen penitence — 

“You should have kept the dog out of my way — a little 
poaching varmint.” 

At this very moment, Mignon stretched out his legs, and 
stiffened in her arms — her lost Mary’s dog, who had 
wandered and sorrowed with her for years. She walked 
right into Mr. Gisborne’s path, and fixed his unwilling, 
sullen look, with her dark and terrible eye. 

“ Those never throve that did me harm,” said she. “ I’m 
alone in the world, and helpless : the more do the saints in 
heaven hear my prayers. Hear me, ye blessed ones ! hear 
me, while I ask for sorrow on this bad, cruel man. He has 
killed the only creature that loved me — the dumb beast that 
I loved. Bring down heavy sorrow on his head for it, O ye 
saints ! He thought that I was helpless, because he saw me 
lonely and poor ; but are not the armies of heaven for the 
like of me ? ” 

“ Come, come,” said he, half remorseful, but not one whit 
afraid. “ Here’s a crown to buy thee another dog. Take it, 
and leave off cursing ! I care none for thy threats.” 

“ Don’t you ? ” said she, coming a step closer, and 
changing her imprecatory cry for a whisper which made the 
gamekeeper’s lad, following Mr. Gisborne, creep all over. 

34o 


The Poor Clare 

“Yon shall live to see the creature yon love best, and who 
alone loves yon — ay, a human creature, but as innocent and 
fond as my poor, dead darling — yon shall see this creature, 
for whom death would be too happy, become a terror and a 
loathing to all, for this blood’s sake. Hear me, O holy 
saints, who never fail them that have no other help ! ” 

She threw up her right hand, filled with poor Mignon’s 
life-drops ; they spirted, one or two of them, on his shooting- 
dress — an ominous sight to the follower. But the master 
only laughed a little, forced, scornful laugh, and went on to 
the Hall. Before he got there, however, he took out a gold 
piece, and bade the boy 'carry it to the old woman on his 
return to the village. The lad was “ afeared,” as he told me 
in after years ; he came to the cottage, and hovered about, 
not daring to enter. He peeped through the window at last ; 
and by the flickering wood-flame, he saw Bridget kneeling 
before the picture of Our Lady of the Holy Heart, with dead 
Mignon lying between her and the Madonna. She was 
praying wildly, as her outstretched arms betokened. The lad 
shrank away in redoubled terror; and contented himself 
with slipping the gold-piece under the ill-fitting door. The 
next day it was thrown out upon the midden ; and there it 
lay, no one daring to touch it. 

Meanwhile Mr. Gisborne, half curious, half uneasy, 
thought to lessen his uncomfortable feelings by asking Sir 
Philip who Bridget was ? He could only describe her — he 
did not know her name. Sir Philip was equally at a loss. 
But an old servant of the Starkeys, who had resumed his 
livery at the Hall on this occasion — a scoundrel whom 
Bridget had saved from dismissal more than once during 
her palmy days — said — 

“ It will be the old witch, that his worship means. She 
needs a ducking, if ever a woman did, does that Bridget 
Fitzgerald.” 

“ Fitzgerald ! ” said both the gentlemen at once. But 
Sir Philip was the first to continue — 

“ I must have no talk of ducking her, Dickon. Why, 
34i 


The Poor Clare 

she must be the very woman poor Starkey bade me have a 
care of ; but when I came here last she was gone, no one 
knew where. I’ll go and see her to-morrow. But mind 
you, sirrah, if any harm comes to her, or any more talk of 
her being a witch — I’ve a pack of hounds at home, who can 
follow the scent of a lying knave as well as ever they fol- 
lowed a dog-fox ; so take care how you talk about ducking 
a faithful old servant of your dead master’s.” 

“ Had she ever a daughter? ” asked Mr. Gisborne, after 
a while. 

“ I don’t know — yes ! I’ve a notion she had : a kind of 
waiting- woman to Madame Starkey.” 

“ Please your worship,” said humbled Dickon, “ Mistress 
Bridget had a daughter — one Mistress Mary — who went 
abroad, and has never been heard on since ; and folk do say 
that has crazed her mother.” 

Mr. Gisborne shaded his eyes with his hand. 

“ I could wish she had not cursed me,” he muttered. 
“ She may have power — no one else could.” After a while, 
he said aloud, no one understanding rightly what he meant, 
“ Tush ! it is impossible ! ” — and called for claret ; and he 
and the other gentlemen set-to to a drinking-bout. 


CHAPTER II 

I now come to the time in which I myself was mixed up 
with the people that I have been writing about. And to 
make you understand how I became connected with them, 
I must give you some little account of myself. My father 
was the younger son of a Devonshire gentleman of moderate 
property ; my eldest uncle succeeded to the estate of his 
forefathers, my second became an eminent attorney in 
London, and my father took orders. Like most poor clergy- 
men, he had a large family ; and I have no doubt was glad 

342 


The Poor Clare 

enough when my London uncle, who was a bachelor, offered 
to take charge of me, and bring me up to be his successor in 
business. 

In this way I came to live in London, in my uncle’s 
house, not far from Gray’s Inn, and to be treated and 
esteemed as his son, and to labour with him in his office. I 
was very fond of the old gentleman. He was the confiden- 
tial agent of many country squires, and had attained to his 
present position as much by knowledge of human nature as 
by knowledge of law ; though he was learned enough in the 
latter. He used to say his business was law, his pleasure 
heraldry. From his intimate acquaintance with family 
history, and all the tragic courses of life therein involved, to 
hear him talk, at leisure times, about any coat of arms that 
came across his path was as good as a play or a romance. 
Many cases of disputed property, dependent on a love of 
genealogy, were brought to him, as to a great authority on 
such points. If the lawyer who came to consult him was 
young, he would take no fee, only give him a long lecture on 
the importance of attending to heraldry ; if the lawyer was 
of mature age and good standing, he would mulct him pretty 
well, and abuse him to me afterwards as negligent of one 
great branch of the profession. His house was in a stately 
new street called Ormond Street, and in it he had a hand- 
some library ; but all the books treated of things that were 
past ; none of them planned or looked forward into the 
future. I worked away — partly for the sake of my family 
at home, partly because my uncle had really taught me to 
enjoy the kind of practice in which he himself took such 
delight. I suspect I worked too hard ; at any rate, in seven- 
teen hundred and eighteen I was far from well, and my good 
uncle was disturbed by my ill looks. 

One day, he rang the bell twice into the clerk’s room at 
the dingy office in Gray’s Inn Lane. It was the summons 
for me, and I went into his private room just as a gentle- 
man — whom I knew well enough by sight as an Irish lawyer 
of more reputation than he deserved — was leaving. 

343 


The Poor Clare 

My uncle was slowly rubbing his hands together and 
considering. I was there two or three minutes before he 
spoke. Then he told me that I must pack up my portman- 
teau that very afternoon, and start that night by post-horse 
for West Chester. I should get there, if all went well, at 
the end of five days’ time, and must then wait for a packet 
to cross over to Dublin ; from thence I must proceed to a 
certain town named Kildoon ; and in that neighbourhood I 
was to remain, making certain inquiries as to the existence 
of any descendants of the younger branch of a family to 
whom some valuable estates had descended in the female 
line. The Irish lawyer whom I had seen was weary of the 
case, and would willingly have given up the property, with- 
out further ado, to a man who appeared to claim them ; but 
on laying his tables and trees before my uncle, the latter had 
foreseen so many possible prior claimants, that the lawyer 
had begged him to undertake the management of the whole 
business. In his youth, my uncle would have liked nothing 
better than going over to Ireland himself, and ferreting out 
every scrap of paper or parchment, and every word of 
tradition respecting the family. As it was, old and gouty, 
he deputed me. 

Accordingly, I went to Kildoon. I suspect I had some- 
thing of my uncle’s delight in following up a genealogical 
scent, for I very soon found out, when on the spot, that Mr. 
Kooney, the Irish lawyer, would have got both himself and 
the first claimant into a terrible scrape, if he had pronounced 
his opinion that the estates ought to be given up to him. 
There were three poor Irish fellows, each nearer of kin to 
the last possessor ; but, a generation before, there was a still 
nearer relation, who had never been accounted for, nor his 
existence ever discovered by the lawyers, I venture to think, 
till I routed him out from the memory of some of the old 
dependants of the family. What had become of him? I 
travelled backwards and forwards ; I crossed over to France, 
and came back again with a slight clue, which ended in my 
discovering that, wild and dissipated himself, he had left one 

344 


The Poor Clare 

child, a son, of yet worse character than his father; that 
this same Hugh Fitzgerald had married a very beautiful 
serving-woman of th’e Byrnes — a person below him in 
hereditary rank, but above him in character; that he had 
died soon after his marriage, leaving one child, whether a 
boy or a girl I could not learn, and that the mother had 
returned to live in the family of the Byrnes. Now, the chief 
of this latter family was serving in the Duke of Berwick’s 
regiment, and it was long before I could hear from him ; it 
was more than a year before I got a short, haughty letter — 
I fancy he had a soldier’s contempt for a civilian, an Irish- 
man’s hatred for an Englishman, an exiled Jacobite’s jealousy 
of one who prospered and lived tranquilly under the govern- 
ment he looked upon as an usurpation. “ Bridget Fitzgerald,” 
he said, “ had been faithful to the fortunes of his sister — had 
followed her abroad, and to England when Mrs. Starkey had 
thought fit to return. Both his sister and her husband were 
dead ; he knew nothing of Bridget Fitzgerald at the present 
time : probably Sir Philip Tempest, his nephew’s guardian, 
might be able to give me some information.” I have not 
given the little contemptuous terms; the way in which 
faithful service was meant to imply more than it said — all 
that has nothing to do with my story. Sir Philip, when 
applied to, told me that he paid an annuity regularly to 
an old woman named Fitzgerald, living at Coldholme (the 
village near Starkey Manor-house). Whether she had any 
descendants he could not say. 

One bleak March evening, I came in sight of the places 
described at the beginning of my story. I could hardly 
understand the rude dialect in which the direction to old 
Bridget’s house was given. 

“ Yo’ see yon furleets,” all run together, gave me no idea 
that I was to guide myself by the distant lights that shone 
in the windows of the Hall, occupied for the time by a 
farmer who held the post of steward, while the Squire, now 
four or five and twenty, was making the grand tour. How- 
ever, at last, I reached Bridget’s cottage — a low, moss-grown 

345 


The Poor Clare 

place ; the palings that had once surrounded it were broken 
and gone ; and the underwood of the forest came up to the 
walls, and must have darkened the windows. It was about 
seven o’clock — not late to my London notions — but, after 
knocking for some time at the door and receiving no reply, 
I was driven to conjecture that the occupant of the house 
was gone to bed. So I betook myself to the nearest church 
I had seen, three miles back on the road I had come, sure 
that close to that I should find an inn of some kind ; and 
early the next morning I set off back to Coldholme, by a 
field-path which my host assured me I should find a shorter 
cut than the road I had taken the night before. It was a 
cold, sharp morning ; my feet left prints in the sprinkling of 
hoar-frost that covered the ground ; nevertheless, I saw an 
old woman, whom I instinctively suspected to be the object 
of my search, in a sheltered covert on one side of my path. 
I lingered and watched her. She must have been con- 
siderably above the middle size in her prime ; for, when she 
raised herself from the stooping position in which I first saw 
her, there was something fine and commanding in the erect- 
ness of her figure. She drooped again in a minute or two, 
and seemed looking for something on the ground, as, with 
bent head, she turned off from the spot where I gazed upon 
her, and was lost to my sight. I fancy I missed my way, 
and made a round in spite of the landlord’s directions ; for 
by the time I had reached Bridget’s cottage she was there, 
with no semblance of hurried walk or discomposure of any 
kind. The door was slightly ajar. I knocked, and the majestic 
figure stood before me, silently awaiting the explanation of 

my errand. Her teeth were all gone, so the nose and chin 

were brought near together ; the grey eyebrows were straight, 
and almost hung over her deep, cavernous eyes, and the 

thick white hair lay in silvery masses over the low, wide, 

wrinkled forehead. For a moment, I stood uncertain how to 
shape my answer to the solemn questioning of her silence. 

“ Your name is Bridget Fitzgerald, I believe ? ” 

She bowed her head in assent. 

346 


The Poor Clare 

“I have something to say to you. May I come in? 
I am unwilling to keep you standing.” 

“ You cannot tire me,” she said ; and at first she seemed 
inclined to deny me the shelter of her roof. But the next 
moment — she had searched the very soul in me with her 
eyes during that instant — she led me in, and dropped the 
shadowing hood of her grey, draping cloak, which had 
previously hid part of the character of her countenance. 
The cottage was rude and bare enough. But before the 
picture of the Virgin, of which I have made mention, there 
stood a little cup filled with fresh primroses. While she 
paid her reverence to the Madonna, I understood why she 
had been out seeking through the clumps of green in the 
sheltered copse. Then she turned round, and bade me be 
seated. The expression of her face, which all this time 
I was studying, was not bad, as the stories of my last 
night’s landlord had led me to expect ; it was a wild, stern, 
fierce, indomitable countenance, seamed and scarred by 
agonies of solitary weeping; but it was neither cunning 
nor malignant. 

“ My name is Bridget Fitzgerald,” said she, by way of 
opening our conversation. 

“ And your husband was Hugh Fitzgerald, of Knock- 
Mahon, near Kildoon, in Ireland ? ” 

A faint light came into the dark gloom of her eyes. 

“ He was.” 

“ May I ask if you had any children by him ? ” 

The light in her eyes grew quick and red. She tried 
to speak, I could see ; but something rose in her throat, 
and choked her, and until she could speak calmly, she 
would fain not speak at all before a stranger. In a minute 
or so she said — 

“ I had a daughter — one Mary Fitzgerald ” — then her 
strong nature mastered her strong will, and she cried out, 
with a trembling wailing cry : “ Oh, man ! what of her ? — • 
what of her ? ” 

She rose from her seat, and came and clutched at my 
347 


The Poor Clare 

arm, and looked in my eyes. There she read, as I suppose, 
my utter ignorance of what had become of her child; for 
she went blindly back to her chair, and sat rocking herself 
and softly moaning, as if I were not there; I not daring 
to speak to the lone and awful woman. After a little pause, 
she knelt down before the picture of Our Lady of the 
Holy Heart, and spoke to her by all the fanciful and 
poetic names of the Litany. 

“ O Rose of Sharon ! O Tower of David ! O Star of 
the Sea ! have ye no comfort for my sore heart ? Am I for 
ever to hope ? Grant me at least despair ! ” — and so on 
she went, heedless of my presence. Her prayers grew 
wilder and wilder, till they seemed to me to touch on the 
borders of madness and blasphemy. Almost involuntarily, 
I spoke as if to stop her. 

“ Have you any reason to think that your daughter is 
dead?” 

She rose from her knees, and came and stood before me. 

“ Mary Fitzgerald is dead,” said she. “ I shall never 
see her again in the flesh. No tongue ever told me; but 
I know she is dead. I have yearned so to see her, and 
my heart’s will is fearful and strong : it would have drawn 
her to me before now, if she had been a wanderer on the 
other side of the world. I wonder often it has not drawn 
her out of the grave to come and stand before me, and 
hear me tell her how I loved her. For, sir, we parted 
unfriends.” 

I knew nothing but the dry particulars needed for my 
lawyer’s quest, but I could not help feeling for the desolate 
woman; and she must have read the unusual sympathy 
with her wistful eyes. 

“Yes, sir, we did. She never knew how I loved her ; 
and we parted unfriends ; and I fear me that I wished her 
voyage might not turn out well, only meaning — Oh, blessed 
Virgin ! you know I only meant that she should come home 
to her mother’s arms as to the happiest place on earth ; but 
my wishes are terrible — their power goes beyond my thought 

348 


The Poor Clare 

— and there is no hope for me, if my words brought Mary 
harm.” 

“ But,” I said, “ you do not know that she is dead. Even 
now, you hoped she might be alive. Listen to me; ” and I 
told her the tale I have already told you, giving it all in the 
driest manner, for I wanted to recall the clear sense that I 
felt almost sure she had possessed in her younger days, and 
by keeping up her attention to details, restrain the vague 
wildness of her grief. 

She listened with deep attention, putting from time to 
time such questions as convinced me I had to do with no 
common intelligence, however dimmed and shorn by solitude 
and mysterious sorrow. Then she took up her tale, and, in 
few brief words, told me of her wanderings abroad in vain 
search after her daughter : sometimes in the wake of armies, 
sometimes in camp, sometimes in city. The lady, whose 
waiting- woman Mary had gone to be, had died soon after the 
date of her last letter home ; her husband, the foreign officer, 
had been serving in Hungary, whither Bridget had followed 
him, but too late to find him. Vague rumours reached her 
that Mary had made a great marriage ; and this sting of 
doubt was added — whether the mother might not be close 
to her child under her new name, and even hearing of her 
every day, and yet never recognising the lost one under the 
appellation she then bore. At length the thought took pos- 
session of her, that it was possible that all this time Mary 
might be at home at Coldholme, in the Trough of Bolland, 
in Lancashire, in England ; and home came Bridget, in that 
vain hope, to her desolate hearth and empty cottage. Here 
she had thought it safest to remain ; if Mary was in life, it 
was here she would seek for her mother. 

I noted down one or two particulars out of Bridget’s 
narrative that I thought might be of use to me ; for I was 
stimulated to further search in a strange and extraordinary 
manner. It seemed as if it were impressed upon me, that 
I must take up the quest where Bridget had laid it down : 
and this for no reason that had previously influenced me 

349 


The Poor Clare 

(such as my uncle’s anxiety on the subject, my own reputa- 
tion as a lawyer, and so on), but from some strange power 
which had taken possession of my will only that very morn- 
ing, and which forced it in the direction it chose. 

“ I will go,” said I. “ I will spare nothing in the search. 
Trust to me. I will learn all that can be learnt. You shall 
know all that money, or pains, or wit can discover. It is 
true she may be long dead : but she may have left a child.” 

“ A child ! ” she cried, as if for the first time this idea had 
struck her mind. “ Hear him, Blessed Virgin ! he says she 
may have left a child. And you have never told me, though 
I have prayed so for a sign, waking or sleeping ! ” 

“Nay,” said I, “I know nothing but what you tell me. 
You say you heard of her marriage.” 

But she caught nothing of what I said. She was praying 
to the Virgin in a kind of ecstasy, which seemed to render 
her unconscious of my very presence. 

From Coldholme I went to Sir Philip Tempest’s. The 
wife of the foreign officer had been a cousin of his father’s ; 
and from him I thought I might gain some particulars as to 
the existence of the Count de la Tour d’ Auvergne, and where 
I could find him ; for I knew questions de vive voix aid the 
flagging recollection, and I was determined to lose no chance 
for want of trouble. But Sir Philip had gone abroad, and it 
would be some time before I could receive an answer. So I 
followed my uncle’s advice, to whom I had mentioned how 
wearied I felt, both in body and mind, by my will-o’-the-wisp 
search. He immediately told me to go to Harrogate, there 
to await Sir Philip’s reply. I should be near to one of the 
places connected with my search, Coldholme ; not far from 
Sir Philip Tempest, in case he returned, and I wished to ask 
him any further questions; and, in conclusion, my uncle 
bade me try to forget all about my business for a time. 

This was far easier said than done. I have seen a child 
on a common blown along by a high wind, without power of 
standing still and resisting the tempestuous force. I was 
somewhat in the same predicament as regarded my mental 

35o 


The Poor Clare 

state. Something resistless seemed to urge my thoughts on, 
through every possible course by which there was a chance 
of attaining to my object. I did not see the sweeping moors 
when I walked out : when I held a book in my hand, and 
read the words, their sense did not penetrate to my brain. 
If I slept, I went on with the same ideas, always flowing in 
the same direction. This could not last long without having 
a bad effect on the body. I had an illness, which, although 
I was racked with pain, was a positive relief to me, as it 
compelled me to live in the present suffering, and not in the 
visionary researches I had been continually making before. 
My kind uncle came to nurse me ; and, after the immediate 
danger was over, my life seemed to slip away in delicious 
languor for two or three months. I did not ask — so much 
did I dread falling into the old channel of thought — whether 
any reply had been received to my letter to Sir Philip. I 
turned my whole imagination right away from all that 
subject. My uncle remained with me until nigh mid- 
summer, and then returned to his business in London ; 
leaving me perfectly well, although not completely strong. 
I was to follow him in a fortnight ; when, as he said, “ we 
would look over letters, and talk about several things.” I 
knew what this little speech alluded to, and shrank from the 
train of thought it suggested, which was so intimately con- 
nected with my first feelings of illness. However, I had a 
fortnight more for roaming on those invigorating Yorkshire 
moors. 

In those days, there was one large, rambling inn, at 
Harrogate, close to the Medicinal Spring ; but it was already 
becoming too small for the accommodation of the influx of 
visitors, and many lodged round about, in the farmhouses of 
the district. It was so early in the season, that I had the 
inn pretty much to myself, and, indeed, felt rather like a 
visitor in a private house, so intimate had the landlord and 
landlady become with me during my long illness. She 
would chide me for being out so late on the moors, or for 
having been too long without food, quite in a motherly way ; 

35 1 


The Poor Clare 

while he consulted me about vintages and wines, and taught 
me many a Yorkshire wrinkle about horses. In my walks I 
met other strangers from time to time. Even before my 
uncle had left me, I had noticed, with half-torpid curiosity, 
a young lady of very striking appearance, who went about 
always accompanied by an elderly companion — hardly a 
gentlewoman, but with something in her look that pre- 
possessed me in her favour. The younger lady always put 
her veil down when any one approached; so it had been 
only once or twice, when I had come upon her at a sudden 
turn in the path, that I had even had a glimpse at her face. 
I am not sure if it was beautiful, though in after-life I grew 
to think it so. But it was at this time overshadowed by a 
sadness that never varied : a pale, quiet, resigned look of 
intense suffering that irresistibly attracted me, not with love, 
but with a sense of infinite compassion for one so young yet 
so hopelessly unhappy. The companion wore something of 
the same look : quite melancholy, hopeless, yet resigned. I 
asked my landlord who they were. He said they were called 
Clarke, and wished to be considered as mother and daughter ; 
but that, for his part, he did not believe that to be their right 
name, or that there was any such relationship between them. 
They had been in the neighbourhood of Harrogate for some 
time, lodging in a remote farmhouse. The people there 
would tell nothing about them; saying that they paid 
handsomely, and never did any harm ; so why should they 
be speaking of any strange things that might happen ? That, 
as the landlord shrewdly observed, showed there was some- 
thing out of the common way : he had heard that the 
elderly woman was a cousin of the farmer’s where they 
lodged, and so the regard existing between relations might 
help to keep them quiet. 

“ What did he think, then, was the reason of their 
extreme seclusion ? ” asked I. 

“Nay, he could not tell — not he. He had heard that 
the young lady, for all as quiet as she seemed, played strange 
pranks at times.” He shook his head when I asked him for 

352 


The Poor Clare 

more particulars, and refused to give them, which made me 
doubt if he knew any, for he was in general a talkative and 
communicative man. In default of other interests, after my 
uncle left, I set myself to watch these two people. I hovered 
about their walks, drawn towards them with a strange 
fascination, which was not diminished by their evident 
annoyance at so frequently meeting me. One day, I had 
the sudden good fortune to be at hand when they were 
alarmed by the attack of a bull, which, in those unenclosed 
grazing districts, was a particularly dangerous occurrence. 
I have other and more important things to relate than to 
tell of the accident which gave me an opportunity of rescuing 
them ; it is enough to say, that this event was the beginning 
of an acquaintance, reluctantly acquiesced in by them, but 
eagerly prosecuted by me. I can hardly tell when intense 
curiosity became merged in love, but in less than ten days 
after my uncle’s departure I was passionately enamoured of 
Mistress Lucy, as her attendant called her: carefully — for 
this I noted well — avoiding any address which appeared as 
if there was an equality of station between them. I noticed 
also that Mrs. Clarke, the elderly woman, after her first 
reluctance to allow me to pay them any attentions had been 
overcome, was cheered by my evident attachment to the 
young girl ; it seemed to lighten her heavy burden of care, 
and she evidently favoured my visits to the farmhouse where 
they lodged. It was not so with Lucy. A more attractive 
person I never saw, in spite of her depression of manner, 
and shrinking avoidance of me. I felt sure at once, that 
whatever was the source of her grief, it rose from no fault of 
her own. It was difficult to draw her into conversation ; 
but when at times, for a moment or two, I beguiled her into 
talk, I could see a rare intelligence in her face, and a grave, 
trusting look in the soft, grey eyes that were raised for a 
minute to mine. I made every excuse I possibly could for 
going there. I sought wild flowers for Lucy’s sake ; I 
planned walks for Lucy’s sake ; I watched the heavens by 
night, in hopes that some unusual beauty of sky would 

353 2 a 


The Poor Clare 

justify me in tempting Mrs. Clarke and Lucy forth upon the 
moors, to gaze at the great purple dome above. 

It seemed to me that Lucy was aware of my love ; but 
that, for some motive which I could not guess, she would 
fain have repelled me ; but then again I saw, or fancied I 
saw, that her heart spoke in my favour, and that there was 
a struggle going on in her mind, which at times (I loved so 
dearly) I could have begged her to spare herself, even though 
the happiness of my whole life should have been the sacrifice ; 
for her complexion grew paler, her aspect of sorrow more 
hopeless, her delicate frame yet slighter. During this period 
I had written, I should say, to my uncle, to beg to be 
allowed to prolong my stay at Harrogate, not giving any 
reason ; but such was his tenderness towards me that in a 
few days I heard from him, giving me a willing permission, 
and only charging me to take care of myself, and not use too 
much exertion during the hot weather. 

One sultry evening I drew near the farm. The windows 
of their parlour were open, and I heard voices when I turned 
the corner of the house, as I passed the first window (there 
were two windows in their little ground-floor room). I saw 
Lucy distinctly ; but when I had knocked at their door — the 
house-door stood always ajar — she was gone, and I saw only 
Mrs. Clarke, turning over the work-things lying on the table, 
in a nervous and purposeless manner. I felt by instinct 
that a conversation of some importance was coming on, in 
which I should be expected to say what was my object in 
paying these frequent visits. I was glad of the opportunity. 
My uncle had several times alluded to the pleasant possi- 
bility of my bringing home a young wife, to cheer and adorn 
the old house in Ormond Street. He was rich, and I was 
to succeed him, and had, as I knew, a fair reputation for so 
young a lawyer. So on my side I saw no obstacle. It was 
true that Lucy was shrouded in mystery ; her name (I was 
convinced it was not Clarke), birth, parentage, and previous 
life were unknown to me. But I was sure of her goodness 
and sweet innocence, and although I knew that there must 

354 


The Poor Clare 

be something painful to be told, to account for her mournful 
sadness, yet I was willing to bear my share in her grief, 
whatever it might be. 

Mrs. Clarke began, as if it was a relief to her to plunge 
into the subject. 

“We have thought, sir — at least I have thought — that 
you knew very little of us, or we of you, indeed; not 
enough to warrant the intimate acquaintance we have fallen 
into. I beg your pardon, sir,” she went on nervously ; “ I 
am but a plain kind of woman, and I mean to use no rude- 
ness ; but I must say straight out that I — we— think it 
would be better for you not to come so often to see us. She 
is very unprotected, and ” 

“Why should I not come to see you, dear madam?” 
asked I eagerly, glad of the opportunity of explaining my- 
self. “ I come, I own, because I have learnt to love Mistress 
Lucy, and wish to teach her to love me.” 

Mistress Clarke shook her head, and sighed. 

“ Don’t, sir — neither love her, nor, for the sake of all you 
hold sacred, teach her to love you ! If I am too late, and 
you love her already, forget her — forget these last few 
weeks. Oh ! I should never have allowed you to come ! ” 
she went on passionately ; “ but what am I to do ? We 
are forsaken by all, except the great God, and even He 
permits a strange and evil power to afflict us — what am I 
to do ? Where is it to end ? ” She wrung her hands in 
her distress ; then she turned to me : “Go away, sir ! go 
away, before you learn to care any more for her. I ask 
it for your own sake — I implore ! You have been good and 
kind to us, and we shall always recollect you with gratitude ; 
but go away now, and never come back to cross our fatal 
path ! ” 

“ Indeed, madam,” said I, “ I shall do no such thing. 
You urge it for my own sake. I have no fear, so urged, 
nor wish, except to hear more — all. I cannot have seen 
Mistress Lucy in all the intimacy of this last fortnight, 
without acknowledging her goodness and innocence; and 

355 


The Poor Clare 

without seeing — pardon me, madam — that for some reason 
you are two very lonely women, in some mysterious sorrow 
and distress. Now, though I am not powerful myself, yet 
I have friends who are so wise and kind that they may be 
said to possess power. Tell me some particulars. Why 
are you in grief —what is your secret— why are you here ? 
I declare solemnly that nothing you have said has daunted 
me in my wish to become Lucy’s husband ; nor will I shrink 
from any difficulty that, as such an aspirant, I may have to 
encounter. You say you are friendless — why cast away an 
honest friend ? I will tell you of people to whom you may 
write, and who will answer any questions as to my character 
and prospects. I do not shun inquiry.” 

She shook her head again. “ You had better go away, 
sir. You know nothing about us.” 

“I know your names,” said I, “and I have heard you 
allude to the part of the country from which you came, 
which I happen to know as a wild and lonely place. There 
are so few people living in it that, if I chose to go there, I 
could easily ascertain all about you; but I would rather 
hear it from yourself.” You see I wanted to pique her into 
telling me something definite. 

“ You do not know our true names, sir,” said she hastily. 

“ Well, I may have conjectured as much. But tell me, 
then, I conjure you. Give me your reasons for distrusting 
my willingness to stand by what I have said with regard to 
Mistress Lucy.” 

“ Oh, what can I do ? ” exclaimed she. “ If I am turning 
away a true friend, as he says ? — Stay ! ” coming to a sudden 
decision — “ I will tell you something — I cannot tell you all 
— you would not believe it. But, perhaps, I can tell you 
enough to prevent your going on in your hopeless attach- 
ment. I am not Lucy’s mother.” 

“ So I conjectured,” I said. “ Go on.” 

“I do not even know whether she is the legitimate or 
illegitimate child of her father. But he is cruelly turned 
against her ; and her mother is long dead ; and, for a terrible 

356 


The Poor Clare 

reason, she has no other creature to keep constant to her 
but me. She — only two years ago — such a darling and such 
a pride in her father’s house ! Why, sir, there is a mystery 
that might happen in connection with her any moment ; and 
then you would go away like all the rest ; and, when you 
next heard her name, you would loathe her. Others, who 
have loved her longer, have done so before now. My poor 
child ! whom neither God nor man has mercy upon — or, 
surely, she would die ! ” 

The good woman was stopped by her crying. I confess, 
I was a little stunned by her last words ; but only for a 
moment. At any rate, till I knew definitely what was this 
mysterious stain upon one so simple and pure, as Lucy 
seemed, I would not desert her, and so I said; and she 
made me answer — 

“ If you are daring in your heart to think harm of my 
child, sir, after knowing her as you have done, you are no 
good man yourself ; but I am so foolish and helpless in my 
great sorrow, that I would fain hope to find a friend in you. 
I cannot help trusting that, although you may no longer 
feel toward her as a lover, you will have pity upon us ; and 
perhaps, by your learning, you can tell us where to go 
for aid.” 

“ I implore you to tell me what this mystery is,” I cried, 
almost maddened by this suspense. 

“I cannot,” said she solemnly. “I am under a deep 
vow of secrecy. If you are to be told it must be by 
her.” She left the room, and I remained to ponder over 
this strange interview. I mechanically turned over the 
few books, and with eyes that saw nothing at the time, 
examined the tokens of Lucy’s frequent presence in that 
room. 

When I got home at night, I remembered how all these 
trifles spoke of a pure and tender heart and innocent life. 
Mistress Clarke returned ; she had been crying sadly. 

“ Yes,” said she, “ it is as I feared : she loves you so 
much that she is willing to run the fearful risk of telling 

357 


The Poor Clare 

you all herself — she acknowledges it is but a poor chance ; 
but your sympathy will be a balm, if you give it. To- 
morrow, come here at ten in the morning ; and, as you 
hope for pity in your hour of agony, repress all show of 
fear or repugnance you may feel towards one so grievously 
afflicted.” 

I half smiled. “ Have no fear,” I said. It seemed too 
absurd to imagine my feeling dislike to Lucy. 

“ Her father loved her well,” said she gravely; “yet he 
drove her out like some monstrous thing.” 

Just at this moment came a peal of ringing laughter from 
the garden. It was Lucy’s voice ; it sounded as if she were 
standing just on one side of the open casement — and as 
though she were suddenly stirred to merriment — merriment 
verging on boisterousness, by the doings or sayings of some 
other person. I can scarcely say why, but the sound jarred 
on me inexpressibly. She knew the subject of our con- 
versation, and must have been at least aware of the state 
of agitation her friend was in ; she herself usually so gentle 
and quiet. I half rose to go to the window, and satisfy my 
instinctive curiosity as to what had provoked this burst of 
ill-timed laughter ; but Mrs. Clarke threw her whole weight 
and power upon the hand with which she pressed and kept 
me down. 

“ For God’s sake ! ” she said, white and trembling all 
over, “ sit still ; be quiet. Oh ! be patient. To-morrow you 
will know all. Leave us, for we are all sorely afflicted. Do 
not seek to know more about us.” 

Again that laugh — so musical in sound, yet so discordant 
to my heart. She held me tight — tighter ; without positive 
violence I could not have risen. I was sitting with my 
back to the window, but I felt a shadow pass between the 
sun’s warmth and me, and a strange shudder ran through 
my frame. In a minute or two she released me. 

“ Go,” repeated she. “ Be warned, I ask you once more. 
I do not think you can stand this knowledge that you seek. 
If I had had my own way, Lucy should never have yielded, 

358 


The Poor Clare 

and promised to tell you all. Who knows what may come 
of it ? * 

“ I am firm in my wish to know all. I return at ten 
to-morrow morning, and then expect to see Mistress Lucy 
herself.” 

I turned away ; having my own suspicions, I confess, as 
to Mistress Clarke’s sanity. 

Conjectures as to the meaning of her hints, and un- 
comfortable thoughts connected with that strange laughter, 
filled my mind. I could hardly sleep. I rose early ; and 
long before the hour I had appointed, I was on the path 
over the common that led to the old farmhouse where they 
lodged. I suppose that Lucy had passed no better a night 
than I ; for there she was also, slowly pacing with her even 
step, her eyes bent down, her whole look most saintly and 
pure. She started when I came close to her, and grew 
paler as I reminded her of my appointment, and spoke with 
something of the impatience of obstacles that seeing her 
once more had called up afresh in my mind. All strange 
and terrible hints, and giddy merriment were forgotten. My 
heart gave forth words of fire, and my tongue uttered them. 
Her colour went and came, as she listened ; but, when I 
had ended my passionate speeches, she lifted her soft eyes 
to me, and said — 

“ But you know that you have something to learn about 
me yet. I only want to say this : I shall not think less of 
you — less well of you, I mean — if you, too, fall away from 
me when you know all. Stop ! ” said she, as if fearing 
another burst of mad words. “ Listen to me. My father 
is a man of great wealth. I never knew my mother ; she 
must have died when I was very young. When first I 
remember anything, I was living in a great, lonely house, 
with my dear and faithful Mistress Clarke. My father, even, 
was not there ; he was — he is — a soldier, and his duties lie 
abroad. But he came from time to time, and every time 
I think he loved me more and more. He brought me rarities 
from foreign lands, which prove to me now how much he 

359 


The Poor Clare 

must have thought of me during his absences. I can sit 
down and measure the depth of his lost love now, by such 
standards as these. I never thought whether he loved me 
or not, then ; it was so natural that it was like the air 
I breathed. Yet he was an angry man at times, even then ; 
but never with me. He was very reckless, too ; and, once 
or twice, I heard a whisper among the servants that a doom 
was over him, and that he knew it, and tried to drown his 
knowledge in wild activity, and even sometimes, sir, in wine. 
So I grew up in this grand mansion, in that lonely place. 
Everything around me seemed at my disposal, and I think 
every one loved me; I am sure I loved them. Till about 
two years ago — I remember it well — my father had come to 
England, to us ; and he seemed so proud and so pleased 
with me and all I had done. And one day his tongue 
seemed loosened with wine, and he told me much that I 
had not known till then— how dearly he had loved my 
mother, yet how his wilful usage had caused her death ; and 
then he went on to say how he loved me better than any 
creature on earth, and how, some day, he hoped to take 
me to foreign places, for that he could hardly bear these 
long absences from his only child. Then he seemed to 
change suddenly, and said, in a strange, wild way, that I 
was not to believe what he said ; that there was many a 
thing he loved better — his horse — his dog — I know not 
what. 

“ And ’twas only the next morning that, when I came 
into his room to ask his blessing as was my wont, he re- 
ceived me with fierce and angry words. ‘ Why had 1/ so 
he asked, ‘ been delighting myself in such wanton mischief 
— dancing over the tender plants in the flower-beds, all set 
with the famous Dutch bulbs he had brought from Holland ? ’ 
I had never been out of doors that morning, sir, and I could 
not conceive what he meant, and so I said; and then he 
swore at me for a liar, and said I was of no true blood, for 
he had seen me doing all that mischief himself — with his 
own eyes. What could I say? He would not listen to 

360 


The Poor Clare 

me, and even my tears seemed only to irritate him. That 
day was the beginning of my great sorrows. Not long after, 
he reproached me for my undue familiarity — all unbecoming 
a gentlewoman — with his grooms. I had been in the stable- 
yard, laughing and talking, he said. Now, sir, I am some- 
thing of a coward by nature, and I had always dreaded 
horses ; besides that, my father’s servants — those whom he 
brought with him from foreign parts — were wild fellows, 
whom I had always avoided, and to whom I had never 
spoken, except as a lady must needs from time to time 
speak to her father’s people. Yet my father called me by 
names of which I hardly know the meaning, but my heart 
told me they were such as shame any modest woman ; and 
from that day he turned quite against me; — nay, sir, not 
many weeks after that, he came in with a riding- whip in 
his hand ; and, accusing me harshly of evil doings, of which 
I knew no more than you, sir, he was about to strike me, 
and I, all in bewildering tears, was ready to take his stripes 
as great kindness compared to his harder words, when sud- 
denly he stopped his arm midway, gasped and staggered, 
crying out, ‘ The curse — the curse ! ’ I looked up in terror. 
In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and right behind, 
another wicked, fearful self, so like me that my soul seemed 
to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which simili- 
tude of body it belonged. My father saw my Double at the 
same moment, either in its dreadful reality, whatever that 
might be, or in the scarcely less terrible reflection in the 
mirror ; but what came of it at that moment I cannot say, 
for I suddenly swooned away ; and when I came to myself 
I was lying in my bed, and my faithful Clarke sitting by 
me. I was in my bed for days ; and even while I lay there 
my Double was seen by all, flitting about the house and 
gardens, always about some mischievous or detestable work. 
What wonder that every one shrank from me in dread — 
that my father drove me forth at length, when the disgrace 
of which I was the cause was past his patience to bear. 
Mistress Clarke came with me ; and here we try to live 

361 


The Poor Clare 

such a life of piety and prayer as may in time set me free 
from the curse.” 

All the time she had been speaking, I had been weighing 
her story in my mind. I had hitherto put cases of witchcraft 
on one side, as mere superstitions ; and my uncle and I had 
had many an argument, he supporting himself by the opinion 
of his good friend Sir Matthew Hale. Yet this sounded like 
the tale of one bewitched ; or was it merely the effect of a 
life of extreme seclusion telling on the nerves of a sensitive 
girl? My scepticism inclined me to the latter belief, and 
when she paused I said — 

“ I fancy that some physician could have disabused your 
father of his belief in visions ” 

Just at that instant, standing as I was opposite to her 
in the full and perfect morning light, I saw behind her 
another figure — a ghastly resemblance, complete in likeness, 
so far as form and feature and minutest touch of dress could 
go, but with a loathsome demon soul looking out of the 
grey eyes, that were in turns mocking and voluptuous. My 
heart stood still within me; every hair rose up erect; my 
flesh crept with horror. I could not see the grave and 
tender Lucy — my eyes were fascinated by the creature be- 
yond. I know not why, but I put out my hand to clutch 
it; I grasped nothing but empty air, and my whole blood 
curdled to ice. For a moment I could not see ; then my 
sight came back, and I saw Lucy standing before me, alone, 
deathly pale, and, I could have fancied, almost shrunk in 
size. 

“ It has been near me ? ” she said, as if asking a question. 

The sound seemed taken out of her voice ; it was husky 
as the notes on an old harpsichord when the strings have 
ceased to vibrate. She read her answer in my face, I sup- 
pose, for I could not speak. Her look was one of intense 
fear, but that died away into an aspect of most humble 
patience. At length she seemed to force herself to face 
behind and around her: she saw the purple moors, the 
blue distant hills, quivering in the sunlight, but nothing else. 

362 


The Poor Clare 

“ Will you take me home ? ” she said meekly. 

I took her by the hand, and led her silently through the 
budding heather — we dared not speak ; for we could not tell 
but that the dread creature was listening, although unseen — 
but that it might appear and push us asunder. I never loved 
her more fondly than now when — and that was the unspeak- 
able misery — the idea of her was becoming so inextricably 
blended with the shuddering thought of it. She seemed to 
understand what I must be feeling. She let go my hand, 
which she had kept clasped until then, when we reached the 
garden gate, and went forwards to meet her anxious friend, 
who was standing by the window looking for her. I could 
not enter the house ; I needed silence, society, leisure, change 
— I knew not what — to shake off the sensation of that 
creature’s presence. Yet I lingered about the garden — I 
hardly know why; partly, I suppose, because I feared to 
encounter the resemblance again on the solitary common, 
where it had vanished, and partly from a feeling of inex- 
pressible compassion for Lucy. In a few minutes Mistress 
Clarke came forth and joined me. We walked some paces 
in silence. 

“ You know all, now,” said she solemnly. 

“ I saw it,” said I, below my breath. 

“ And you shrink from us, now,” she said, with a 
hopelessness which stirred up all that was brave or good 
in me. 

“ Not a whit,” said I. “ Human flesh shrinks from 
encounter with the powers of darkness : and, for some 
reason unknown to me, the pure and holy Lucy is their 
victim.” 

“ The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children,” 
she said. 

“ Who is her father? ” asked I. “ Knowing as much as 
I do, I may surely know more — know all. Tell me, I entreat 
you, madam, all that you can conjecture respecting this 
demoniac persecution of one so good.” 

“ I will ; but not now. I must go to Lucy now. Come 

363 


The Poor Clare 

this afternoon, I will see yon alone ; and oh, sir, I will trust 
that you may yet find some way to help us in our sore 
trouble ! ” 

I was miserably exhausted by the swooning affright which 
had taken possession of me. When I reached the inn, I 
staggered in like one overcome by wine. I went to my own 
private room. It was some time before I saw that the 
weekly post had come in, and brought me my letters. 
There was one from my uncle, one from my home in Devon- 
shire, and one, re-directed over the first address, sealed with 
a great coat of arms. It was from Sir Philip Tempest : my 
letter of inquiry respecting Mary Fitzgerald had reached him 
at Li6ge, where it so happened that the Count de la Tour 
d’ Auvergne was quartered at the very time. He remembered 
his wife’s beautiful attendant ; she had had high words with 
the deceased countess, respecting her intercourse with an 
English gentleman of good standing, who was also in the 
foreign service. The countess augured evil of his intentions ; 
while Mary, proud and vehement, asserted that he would 
soon marry her, and resented her mistress’s warnings as an 
insult. The consequence was, that she had left Madame de 
la Tour d’ Auvergne’s service, and, as the Count believed, had 
gone to live with the Englishman ; whether he had married 
her, or not, he could not say. “ But,” added Sir Philip 
Tempest, “ you may easily hear what particulars you wish to 
know respecting Mary Fitzgerald from the Englishman him- 
self, if, as I suspect, he is no other than my neighbour and 
former acquaintance, Mr. Gisborne, of Skipford Hall, in 
the West Biding. I am led to the belief that he is no other, 
by several small particulars, none of which are ,in themselves 
conclusive, but which, taken together, furnish a mass of 
presumptive evidence. As far as I could make out from the 
Count’s foreign pronunciation, Gisborne was the name of the 
Englishman ; I know that Gisborne of Skipford was abroad 
and in the foreign service at that time — he was a likely 
fellow enough for such an exploit, and, above all, certain 
expressions recur to my mind which he used in reference to 

364 


The Poor Clare 

old Bridget Fitzgerald, of Coldholme, whom he once en- 
countered while staying with me at Starkey Manor-house. 
I remember that the meeting seemed to have produced some 
extraordinary effect upon his mind, as though he had sud- 
denly discovered some connection which she might have had 
with his previous life. I beg you to let me know if I can be 
of any further service to you. Your uncle once rendered me 
a good turn, and I will gladly repay it, so far as in me lies, 
to his nephew.” 

I was now apparently close on the discovery which I had 
striven so many months to attain. But success had lost its 
zest. I put my letters down, and seemed to forget them all 
in thinking of the morning I had passed that very day. 
Nothing was real but the unreal presence, which had come 
like an evil blast across my bodily eyes, and burnt itself 
down upon my brain. Dinner came, and went away un- 
touched. Early in the afternoon I walked to the farmhouse. 
I found Mistress Clarke alone, and I was glad and relieved. 
She was evidently prepared to tell me all I might wish to 
hear. 

“ You asked me for Mistress Lucy’s true name ; it is 
Gisborne,” she began. 

“Not Gisborne of Skipford?” I exclaimed, breathless 
with anticipation. 

“ The same,” said she quietly, not regarding my manner. 
“ Her father is a man of note ; although, being a Roman 
Catholic, he cannot take that rank in this country to which 
his station entitles him. The consequence is that he lives 
much abroad — has been a soldier, I am told.” 

“ And Lucy’s mother ? ” I asked. 

She shook her head. “ I never knew her,” said she. 
“ Lucy was about three years old when I was engaged to 
take charge of her. Her mother was dead.” 

“ But you know her name ? — you can tell if it was Mary 
Fitzgerald ? ” 

She looked astonished. “ That was her name. But, sir, 
how came you to be so well acquainted with it ? It was a 

365 


The Poor Clare 

mystery to the whole household at Skipford Court. She was 
some beautiful young woman whom he lured away from 
her protectors while he was abroad. I have heard said he 
practised some terrible deceit upon her, and when she came 
to know it, she was neither to have nor to hold, but rushed 
off from his very arms, and threw herself into a rapid stream 
and was drowned. It stung him deep with remorse, but I 
used to think the remembrance of the mother’s cruel death 
made him love the child yet dearer.” 

I told her, as briefly as might be, of my researches after 
the descendant and heir of the Fitzgeralds of Kildoon, and 
added — something of my old lawyer spirit returning into me 
for the moment — that I had no doubt but that we should 
prove Lucy to be by right possessed of large estates in 
Ireland. 

No flush came over her grey face ; no light into her eyes. 
“ And what is all the wealth in the whole world to that poor 
girl ? ” she said. “ It will not free her from the ghastly 
bewitchment which persecutes her. As for money, what a 
pitiful thing it is ! it cannot touch her.” 

“No more can the Evil Creature harm her,” I said. 
“ Her holy nature dwells apart, and cannot be defiled or 
stained by all the devilish arts in the whole world.” 

, “ True S but it is a cruel fate' to know that all shrink from 
her, sooner or later, as from one possessed — accursed.” 

“ How came it to pass ? ” I asked. 

“Nay, I know not. Old rumours there are, that were 
bruited through the household at Skipford.” 

“ Tell me,” I demanded. 

“ They came from servants, who would fain account for 
everything. They say that, many years ago, Mr. Gisborne 
killed a dog belonging to an old witch at Coldholme ; that 
she cursed, with a dreadful and mysterious curse, the 
creature, whatever it might be, that he should love best ; and 
that it struck so deeply into his heart that for years he kept 
himself aloof from any temptation to love aught. But who 
could help loving Lucy ? ” 


366 


The Poor Clare 

“ You never heard the witch’s name ? ” I gasped. 

“ Yes — they called her Bridget ; they said he would never 
go near the spot again for terror of her. Yet he was a brave 
man ! ” 

“ Listen,” said I, taking hold of her arm, the better to 
arrest her full attention ; “if what I suspect holds true, that 
man stole Bridget’s only child — the very Mary Fitzgerald 
who was Lucy’s mother ; if so, Bridget cursed him in ignor- 
ance of the deeper wrong he had done her. To this hour 
she yearns after her lost child, and questions the saints 
whether she be living or not. The roots of that curse lie 
deeper than she knows : she unwittingly banned him for a 
deeper guilt than that of killing a dumb beast. The sins of 
the fathers are indeed visited upon the children.” 

“ But,” said Mistress Clarke eagerly, “ she would never 
let evil rest on her own grandchild ? Surely, sir, if what you 
say be true, there are hopes for Lucy. Let us go-go at 
once, and tell this fearful woman all that you suspect, 
and beseech her to take off the spell she lias put upon her 
innocent grandchild.” 

It seemed to me, indeed, that something like this w T as the 
best course we could pursue. But first it was necessary to 
ascertain more than what mere rumour or careless hearsay 
could tell. My thoughts turned to my uncle — he could 
advise me wisely — he ought to know all. I resolved to go 
to him without delay ; but I did not choose to tell Mistress 
Clarke of all the visionary plans that flitted through my mind. 
I simply declared my intention of proceeding straight to 
London on Lucy’s affairs. I bade her believe that my 
interest on the young lady’s behalf was greater than ever, 
and that my whole time should be given up to her cause. I 
saw that Mistress Clarke distrusted me, because my mind 
was too full of thoughts for my words to flow freely. She 
sighed and shook her head, and said, “ Well, it is all right ! ” 
in such a tone that it was an implied reproach. But I 
was firm and constant in my heart, and I took confidence 
from that. 


367 


The Poor Clare 

I rode to London. I rode long days drawn out into the 
lovely summer nights : I could not rest. I reached London. 
I told my uncle all, though in the stir of the great city the 
horror had faded away, and I could hardly imagine that he 
would believe the account I gave him of the fearful double 
of Lucy which I had seen on the lonely moor-side. But my 
uncle had lived many years, and learnt many things ; and, 
in the deep secrets of family history that had been confided 
to him, he had heard of cases of innocent people bewitched 
and taken possession of by evil spirits yet more fearful than 
Lucy’s. For, as he said, to judge from all I told him, that 
resemblance had no power over her — she was too pure and 
good to be tainted by its evil, haunting presence. It had, in 
all probability, so my uncle conceived, tried to suggest 
wicked thoughts and to tempt to wicked actions ; but she, in 
her saintly maidenhood, had passed on undefiled by evil 
thought or deed. It could not touch her soul ; but true, it 
set her apart from all sweet love or common human inter- 
course. My uncle threw himself with an energy more like 
six-and-twenty than sixty into the consideration of the whole 
case. He undertook the proving Lucy’s descent, and 
volunteered to go and find out Mr. Gisborne, and obtain, 
firstly, the legal proofs of her descent from the Fitzgeralds 
of Kildoon, and, secondly, to try and hear all that he could 
respecting the working of the curse, and whether any and 
what means had been taken to exorcise that terrible ap- 
pearance. For he told me of instances where, by prayers 
and long fasting, the evil possessor had been driven forth 
with howling and many cries from the body which it had 
come to inhabit; he spoke of those strange New England 
cases which had happened not so long before ; of Mr. Defoe, 
who had written a book, wherein he had named many 
modes of subduing apparitions, and sending them back 
whence they came ; and, lastly, he spoke low of dreadful 
ways of compelling witches to undo their witchcraft. But I 
could not endure to hear of those tortures and burnings. I 
said that Bridget was rather a wild and savage woman than 

368 


The Poor Clare 

a malignant witch ; and, above all, that Lucy was of her 
kith and kin ; and that, in putting her to the trial, by water 
or by fire, we should be torturing — it might be to the death — 
the ancestress of her we sought to redeem. 

My uncle thought awhile, and then said, that in this last 
matter I was right — at any rate, it should not be tried, with 
his consent, till all other modes of remedy had failed ; and 
he assented to my proposal that I should go myself and see 
Bridget, and tell her all. 

In accordance with this, I went down once more to the 
wayside inn near Coldholme. It was late at night when I 
arrived there ; and, while I supped, I inquired of the land- 
lord more particulars as to Bridget’s ways. Solitary and 
savage had been her life for many years. Wild and despotic 
were her words and manner to those few people who came 
across her path. The country-folk did her imperious bidding, 
because they feared to disobey. If they pleased her, they 
prospered; if, on the contrary, they neglected or traversed 
her behests, misfortune, small or great, fell on them and 
theirs. It was not detestation so much as an indefinable 
terror that she excited. 

In the morning I went to see her. She was standing 
on the green outside her cottage, and received me with 
the sullen grandeur of a throneless queen. I read in 
her face that she recognized me, and that I was not 
unwelcome; but she stood silent till I had opened my 
errand. 

“ I have news of your daughter,” said I, resolved to speak 
straight to all that I knew she felt of love, and not to spare 
her. “ She is dead ! ” 

The stem figure scarcely trembled, but her hand sought 
the support of the door-post. 

“ I knew that she was dead,” said she, deep and low, and 
then was silent for an instant. “ My tears that should have 
flowed for her were burnt up long years ago. Young man, 
tell me about her.” 

“ Not yet,” said I, having a strange power given me of 
369 2 B 


The Poor Clare 

confronting one whom, nevertheless, in my secret soul I 
dreaded. 

“ You had once a little dog,” I continued. The words 
called out in her more show of emotion than the intelligence 
of her daughter’s death. She broke in upon my speech — 

“ I had ! It was hers — the last thing I had of hers — and 
it was shot for wantonness ! It died in my arms. The man 
who killed that dog rues it to this day. For that dumb 
beast’s blood, his best-beloved stands accursed.” 

Her eyes distended, as if she were in a trance and saw 
the working of her curse. Again I spoke — 

“ O woman ! ” I said, “ that best-beloved, standing 
accursed before men, is your dead daughter’s child.” 

The life, the energy, the passion, came back to the eyes 
with which she pierced through me, to see if I spoke truth ; 
then, without another question or word, she threw herself 
on the ground with fearful vehemence, and clutched at the 
innocent daisies with convulsed hands. 

“ Bone of my bone ! flesh of my flesh ! I cursed thee — 
and art thou accursed ? ” 

So she moaned, as she lay prostrate in her great agony. 
I stood aghast at my own work. She did not hear my 
broken sentences ; she asked no more, but the dumb con- 
firmation which my sad looks had given that one fact, that 
her curse rested on her own daughter’s child. The fear grew 
on me lest she should die in her strife of body and soul ; and 
then might not Lucy remain under the spell as long as she 
lived ? 

Even at this moment, I saw Lucy coming through the 
woodland path that led to Bridget’s cottage ; Mistress Clarke 
was with her; I felt at my heart that it was she, by the 
balmy peace which the look of her sent over me, as she 
slowly advanced, a glad surprise shining out of her soft 
quiet eyes. That was as her gaze met mine. As her looks 
fell on the woman lying stiff, convulsed on the earth, they 
became full of tender pity ; and she came forward to try and 
lift her up. Seating herself on the turf, she took Bridget’s 

37o 


The Poor Clare 

head into her lap ; and, with gentle touches, she arranged 
the dishevelled grey hair streaming thick and wild from 
beneath her mutch. 

“ God help her ! ” murmured Lucy. “ How she suffers ! ” 

At her desire we sought for water ; but when we returned, 
Bridget had recovered her wandering senses, and was kneel- 
ing with clasped hands before Lucy, gazing at that sweet 
sad face as though her troubled nature drank in health and 
peace from every moment’s contemplation. A faint tinge 
on Lucy’s pale cheeks showed me that she was aware of 
our return ; otherwise it appeared as if she was conscious 
of her influence for good over the passionate and troubled 
woman kneeling before her, and would not willingly avert 
her grave and loving eyes from that wrinkled and careworn 
countenance. 

Suddenly — in the twinkling of an eye — the creature 
appeared, there, behind Lucy ; fearfully the same as to out- 
ward semblance, but kneeling exactly as Bridget knelt, and 
clasping, her hands in jesting mimicry as Bridget clasped 
hers in her ecstasy that was deepening into a prayer. Mis- 
tress Clarke cried out — Bridget arose slowly, her gaze fixed 
on the creature beyond ; drawing her breath with a hissing 
sound, never moving her terrible eyes, that were steady as 
stone, she made a dart at the phantom, and caught, as I had 
done, a mere handful of empty air. We saw no more of 
the creature — it vanished as suddenly as it came, but Bridget 
looked slowly on, as if watching some receding form. Lucy 
sat still, white, trembling, drooping — I think she would have 
swooned if I had not been there to uphold her. While I 
was attending to her, Bridget passed us, without a word to 
any one, and, entering her cottage, she barred herself in, 
and left us without. 

All our endeavours were now directed to get Lucy back 
to the house where she had tarried the night before. Mis- 
tress Clarke told me that, not hearing from me (some 
letter must have miscarried), she had grown impatient and 
despairing, arid had urged Lucy to the enterprise of coming 

37i 


The Poor Clare 

to seek her grandmother ; not telling her, indeed, of the 
dread reputation she possessed, or how we suspected her of 
having so fearfully blighted that innocent girl ; but, at the 
same time, hoping much from the mysterious stirring of 
blood, which Mistress Clarke trusted in for the removal of 
the curse. They had come, by a different route from that 
which I had taken, to a village inn not far from Coldholme, 
only the night before. This was the first interview between 
ancestress and descendant. 

All through the sultry noon I wandered along the tangled 
brushwood of the old neglected forest, thinking where to 
turn for remedy in a matter so complicated and mysterious. 
Meeting a countryman, I asked my way to the nearest clergy- 
man, and went, hoping to obtain some counsel from him. 
But he proved to be a coarse and common-minded man, 
giving no time or attention to the intricacies of a case, but 
dashing out a strong opinion involving immediate action. 
For instance, as soon as I named Bridget Fitzgerald, he 
exclaimed — 

“The Coldholme witch ! the Irish Papist ! I’d have had 
her ducked long since but for that other Papist, Sir Philip 
Tempest. He has had to threaten honest folk about here 
over and over again, or they’d have had her up before the 
justices for her black doings. And it’s the law of the land 
that witches should be burnt ! Ay, and of Scripture, too, 
sir ! Yet you see a Papist, if he’s a rich squire, can overrule 
both law and Scripture. I’d carry a faggot myself to rid the 
country of her ! ” 

Such a one could give me no help. I rather drew back 
what I had already said, and tried to make the parson 
forget it, by treating him to several pots of beer in the 
village inn, to which we had adjourned for our conference at 
his suggestion. I left him as soon as I could, and returned 
to Coldholme, shaping my way past deserted Starkey Manor- 
house, and coming upon it by the back. At that side were 
the oblong remains of the old moat, the waters of which lay 
placid and motionless under the crimson rays of the setting 

372 


The Poor Clare 

sun ; with the forest-trees lying straight along each side, and 
their deep-green foliage mirrored to blackness in the bur- 
nished surface of the moat below — and the broken sundial at 
the end nearest the hall — and the heron, standing on one 
leg at the water’s edge, lazily looking down for fish— the 
lonely and desolate house scarce needed the broken windows, 
the weeds on the door-sill, the broken shutter softly flapping 
to and fro in the twilight breeze, to fill up the picture of 
desertion and decay. I lingered about the place until the 
growing darkness warned me on. And then I passed along 
the path, cut by the orders of the last lady of Starkey 
Manor-house, that led me to Bridget’s cottage. I resolved 
at once to see her ; and, in spite of closed doors — it might 
be of resolved will — she should see me. So I knocked at 
her door, gently, loudly, fiercely. I shook it so vehemently 
that at length the old hinges gave way, and with a crash it 
fell inwards, leaving me suddenly face to face with Bridget — • 
I, red, heated, agitated with my so long baffled efforts — she, 
stiff as any stone, standing right facing me, her eyes dilated 
with terror, her ashen lips trembling, but her body motion- 
less. In her hands she held her crucifix, as if by that holy 
symbol she sought to oppose my entrance. At sight of me, 
her whole frame relaxed, and she sank back upon a chair. 
Some mighty tension had given way. Still her eyes looked 
fearfully into the gloom of the outer air, made more opaque 
by the glimmer of the lamp inside, which she had placed 
before the picture of the Virgin. 

. “Is she there ? ” asked Bridget hoarsely. 

“ No ! Who ! I am alone. You remember me.” 

“ Yes,” replied she, still terror-stricken. “ But she — that 
creature — has been looking in upon me through the window 
all day long. I closed it up with my shawl ; and then I saw 
her feet below the door, as long as it was light, and I knew 
she heard my very breathing — nay, worse, my very prayers ; 
and I could not pray, for her listening choked the words ere 
they rose to my lips. Tell me, who is she ? — what means 
that double girl I saw this morning ? One had a look of my 

373 


The Poor Clare 

dead Mary ; but the other curdled my blood, and yet it was 
the same ! ” 

She had taken hold of my arm, as if to secure herself 
some human companionship. She shook all over with 
the slight, never-ceasing tremor of intense terror. I told 
her my tale as I have told it you, sparing none of the 
details. 

How Mistress Clarke had informed me that the resem- 
blance had driven Lucy forth from her father’s house — how 
I had disbelieved, until, with mine own eyes, I had seen 
another Lucy standing behind my Lucy, the same in form 
and feature, but with the demon-soul looking out of the eyes. 
I told her all, I say, believing that she — whose curse was 
working so upon the life of her innocent grandchild — was 
the only person who could find the remedy and the re- 
demption. When I had done, she sat silent for many 
minutes. 

“ You love Mary’s child ? ” she asked. 

“I do, in spite of the fearful working of the curse — I love 
her. Yet I shrink from her ever since that day on the 
moor-side. And men must shrink from one so accompanied ; 
friends and lovers must stand afar off. Oh, Bridget Fitz- 
gerald ! loosen the curse ! Set her free ! ” 

“ Where is she ? ” 

I eagerly caught at the idea that her presence was 
needed, in order that, by some strange prayer or exorcism, 
the spell might be reversed. 

“ I will go and bring her to you ! ” I exclaimed. But 
Bridget tightened her hold upon my arm. 

“ Not so,” said she, in a low, hoarse voice. “ It would 
kill me to see her again as I saw her this morning. And I 
must live till I have worked my work. Leave me ! ” said 
she suddenly, and again taking up the cross. “ I defy the 
demon I have called up. Leave me to wrestle with it ! ” 

She stood up, as if in an ecstasy of inspiration, from 
which all fear was banished. I lingered — why I can hardly 
tell — until once more she bade me begone. As I went along 

374 


The Poor Clare 

the forest way, I looked back, and saw her planting the 
cross in the empty threshold, where the door had been. 

The next morning Lucy and I went to seek her, to bid her 
join her prayers with ours. The cottage stood open and wide 
to our gaze. No human being was there ; the cross 
remained on the threshold, but Bridget was gone. 


CHAPTER III 

What was to be done next ? was the question that I asked 
myself. As for Lucy, she would fain have submitted to the 
doom that lay upon her. Her gentleness and piety, under 
the pressure of so horrible a life, seemed over-passive to me. 
She never complained. Mrs. Clarke complained more than 
ever. As for me, I was more in love with the real Lucy than 
ever ; but I shrank from the false similitude with an intensity 
proportioned to my love. I found out by instinct that Mrs. 
Clarke had occasional temptations to leave Lucy. The good 
lady’s nerves were shaken ; and, from what she said, I could 
almost have concluded that the object of the Double was to 
drive away from Lucy this last, and almost earliest friend. 
At times, I could scarcely bear to own it, but I myself felt 
inclined to turn recreant ; and I would accuse Lucy of being 
too patient —too resigned. One after another, she won the 
little children of Coldholme. (Mrs. Clarke and she had 
resolved to stay there, for was it not as good a place as any 
other, to such as they ? and did not all our faint hopes rest 
on Bridget — never seen or heard of now, but still, we trusted, 
to come back, or give some token ?) So, as I say, one after 
another, the little children came about my Lucy, won by her 
soft tones, and her gentle smiles, and kind actions. Alas ! 
one after another they fell away, and shrunk from her path 
with blanching terror ; and we too surely guessed the reason 
why. It was the last drop. I could bear it no longer. I 

375 


The Poor Clare 

resolved no more to linger around the spot, but to go back to 
my uncle, and among the learned divines of the city of 
London, seek for some power whereby to annul the curse. 

My uncle, meanwhile, bad obtained all the requisite testi- 
monials relating to Lucy’s descent and birth, from the Irish 
lawyers, and from Mr. Gisborne. The latter gentleman had 
written from abroad (be was again serving in the Austrian 
army) a letter alternately passionately self-reproachful and 
stoically repellent. It was evident that, when be thought of 
Mary — her short life — how he had wronged her, and of her 
violent death, he could hardly find words severe enough for 
his own conduct ; and, from this point of view, the curse that 
Bridget had laid upon him and his, was regarded by him as 
a prophetic doom, to the utterance of which she was moved 
by a Higher Power, working for the fulfilment of a deeper 
vengeance than for the death of the poor dog. But then, 
again, when he came to speak of his daughter, the repug- 
nance which the conduct of the demoniac creature had pro- 
duced in his mind, was but ill disguised under a show of 
profound indifference as to Lucy’s fate. One almost felt as 
if he would have been as content to put her out of existence, 
as he would have been to destroy some disgusting reptile that 
had invaded his chamber or his couch. 

The great Fitzgerald property was Lucy’s ; and that was 
all — was nothing. 

My uncle and I sat in the gloom of a London November 
evening, in our house in Ormond Street. I was out of health, 
and felt as if I were in an inextricable coil of misery. Lucy 
and I wrote to each other, but that was little ; and we dare 
not see each other for dread of the fearful Third, who had 
more than once taken her place at our meetings. My uncle 
had, on the day I speak of, bidden prayers to be put up on 
the ensuing Sabbath in many a church and meeting-house in 
London, for one grievously tormented by an evil spirit. He 
had faith in prayers — I had none ; I was fast losing faith in 
all things. So we sat, he trying to interest me in the old 
talk of other days, I oppressed by one thought — when our 

376 


The Poor Clare 

old servant, Anthony, opened the door, and, without speaking, 
showed in a very gentlemanly and prepossessing man, who 
had something remarkable about his dress, betraying his 
profession to be that of the Roman Catholic priesthood. 
He glanced at my uncle first, then at me. It was to me 
he bowed. 

“ I did not give my name,” said he, “ because you would 
hardly have recognised it; unless, sir, when, in the north, 
you heard of Father Bernard, the chaplain at Stony- 
hurst ? ” 

I remembered afterwards that I had heard of him, but 
at the time I had utterly forgotten it ; so I professed myself 
a complete stranger to him ; while my ever-hospitable uncle, 
although hating a Papist as much as it was in his nature 
to hate anything, placed a chair for the visitor, and bade 
Anthony bring glasses, and a fresh jug of claret. 

Father Bernard received this courtesy with the graceful 
ease and pleasant acknowledgment which belongs to a man 
of the world. Then he turned to scan me with his keen 
glance. After some slight conversation, entered into on his 
part, I am certain, with an intention of discovering on what 
terms of confidence I stood with my uncle, he paused, and 
said gravely — 

“ I am sent here with a message to you, sir, from a 
woman to whom you have shown kindness, and who is one 
of my penitents in Antwerp — one Bridget Fitzgerald.” 

“ Bridget Fitzgerald ! ” exclaimed I. “ In Antwerp ? 
Tell me, sir, all that you can about her.” 

“ There is much to be said,” he replied. “ But may I 
inquire if this gentleman — if your uncle is acquainted with 
the particulars of which you and I stand informed ? ” 

“ All that I know, he knows,” said I, eagerly laying my 
hand on my uncle’s arm, as he made a motion as if to quit 
the room. 

“ Then I have to speak before two gentlemen who, how- 
ever they may differ from me in faith, are yet fully im- 
pressed with the fact that there are evil powers going about 

377 


The Poor Clare 

continually to take cognisance of our evil thoughts ; and, if 
their Master gives them power, to bring them into overt 
action. Such is my theory of the nature of that sin which 
I dare not disbelieve — as some sceptics would have us do — 
the sin of witchcraft. Of this deadly sin, you and I are 
aware, Bridget Fitzgerald has been guilty. Since you saw 
her last, many prayers have been offered in our churches, 
many masses sung, many penances undergone, in order that 
if God and the Holy Saints so willed it, her sin might be 
blotted out. But it has not been so willed.” 

“ Explain to me,” said I, “ who you are, and how you 
come connected with Bridget. Why is she at Antwerp? 
I pray you, sir, tell me more. If I am impatient, excuse 
me ; I am ill and feverish, and in consequence bewildered.” 

There was something to me inexpressibly soothing in 
the tone of voice with which he began to narrate, as it were 
from the beginning, his acquaintance with Bridget. 

“ I had known Mr. and Mrs. Starkey during their 
residence abroad, and so it fell out naturally that, when I 
came as chaplain to the Sherburnes at Stonyhurst, our 
acquaintance was renewed ; and thus I became the confessor 
of the whole family, isolated as they were from the offices 
of the Church, Sherburne being their nearest neighbour 
who professed the true faith. Of course, you are aware 
that facts revealed in confession are sealed as in the grave ; 
but I learnt enough of Bridget’s character to be convinced 
that I had to do with no common woman ; one powerful 
for good as for evil. I believe that I was able to give her 
spiritual assistance from time to time, and that she looked 
upon me as a servant of that Holy Church which has such 
wonderful power of moving men’s hearts, and relieving them 
of the burden of their sins. I have known her cross the 
moors on the wildest nights of storm, to confess and be 
absolved ; and then she would return, calmed and subdued, 
to her daily work about her mistress, no one witting where 
she had been during the hours that most passed in sleep 
upon their beds. After her daughter’s departure— after 

37S 


The Poor Clare 

Mary’s mysterious disappearance — I had to impose many 
a long penance, in order to wash away the sin of impatient 
repining that was fast leading her into the deeper guilt of 
blasphemy. She set out on that long journey of which 
you have possibly heard — that fruitless journey in search of 
Mary — and, during her absence, my superiors ordered my 
return to my former duties at Antwerp ; and for many years 
I heard no more of Bridget. 

“Not many months ago, as I was passing homewards in 
the evening, along one of the streets near St. Jacques, leading 
into the Meer Straet, I saw a woman sitting crouched up 
under the shrine of the Holy Mother of Sorrows. Her 
hood was drawn over her head, so that the shadow caused 
by the light of the lamp above fell deep over her face ; her 
hands were clasped round her knees. It was evident that 
she was some one in hopeless trouble, and as such it was 
my duty to stop and speak. I naturally addressed her first 
in Flemish, believing her to be one of the lower class of 
inhabitants. She shook her head, but did not look up. 
Then I tried French, and she replied in that language, but 
speaking it so indifferently that I was sure she was either 
English or Irish, and consequently spoke to her in my own 
native tongue. She recognised my voice ; and, starting up, 
caught at my robes, dragging me before the blessed shrine, 
and throwing herself down, and forcing me, as much by 
her evident desire as by her action, to kneel beside her, she 
exclaimed — 

“ ‘ O Holy Virgin ! you will never hearken to me again, 
but hear him ; for you know him of old, that he does your 
bidding, and strives to heal broken hearts. Hear him ! ’ 

“ She turned to me. 

“ ‘ She will hear you, if you will only pray. She never 
hears me : she and all the saints in heaven cannot hear my 
prayers, for the Evil One carries them off as he carried that 
first away. Oh, Father Bernard, pray for me ! ’ 

“ I prayed for one in sore distress, of what nature I 
could not say; but the Holy Virgin would know. Bridget 

379 


The Poor Clare 

held me fast, gasping with eagerness at the sound of my 
words. When I had ended, I rose, and, making the sign 
of the Cross over her, I was going to bless her in the name 
of the Holy Church, when she shrank away like some 
terrified creature, and said — 

“‘I am guilty of deadly sin, and am not shriven/ 

“ ‘ Arise, my daughter,’ said I, ‘ and come with me.’ 
And I led the way into one of the confessionals of St. 
Jacques. 

“ She knelt ; I listened. No words came. The evil 
powers had stricken her dumb, as I heard afterwards they 
had many a time before, when she approached confession. 

“ She was too poor to pay for the necessary forms of 
exorcism ; and hitherto those priests to whom she had 
addressed herself were either so ignorant of the meaning 
of her broken French, or her Irish-English, or else esteemed 
her to be one so crazed — as, indeed, her wild and excited 
manner might easily have led any one to think — that they 
had neglected the sole means of loosening her tongue, so 
that she might confess her deadly sin, and, after due 
penance, obtain absolution. But I knew Bridget of old, 
and felt that she was a penitent sent to me. I went through 
those holy offices appointed by our Church for the relief 
of such a case. I was the more bound to do this, as I 
found that she had come to Antwerp for the sole purpose 
of discovering me, and making confession to me. Of the 
nature of that fearful confession I am forbidden to speak. 
Much of it you know ; possibly all. 

“ It now remains for her to free herself from mortal 
guilt, and to set others free from the consequences thereof. 
No prayers, no masses, will ever do it, although they may 
strengthen her with that strength by which alone acts of 
deepest love and purest self-devotion may be performed. 
Her words of passion, and cries for revenge— her unholy 
prayers could never reach the ears of the holy saints ! 
Other powers intercepted them, and wrought so that the 
curses thrown up to heaven have fallen on her own flesh 

380 


The Poor Clare 

and blood, and so, through her very strength of love, have 
bruised and crushed her heart. Henceforward her former 
self must be buried, — yea, buried quick, if need be, — but 
never more to make sign, or utter cry on earth ! She has 
become a Poor Clare, in order that, by perpetual penance 
and constant service of others, she may at length so act 
as to obtain final absolution and rest for her soul. Until 
then, the innocent must suffer. It is to plead for the 
innocent that I come to you ; not in the name of the witch, 
Bridget Fitzgerald, but of the penitent and servant of all 
men, the Poor Clare, Sister Magdalen.” 

“ Sir,” said I, “ I listen to your request with respect ; 
only I may tell you it is not needed to urge me to do all 
that I can on behalf of one, love for whom is part of my 
very life. If for a time I have absented myself from her, 
it is to think and work for her redemption. I, a member 
of the English Church — my uncle, a Puritan — pray morning 
and night for her by name : the congregations of London, 
on the next Sabbath, will pray for one unknown, that she 
may be set free from the Powers of Darkness. Moreover, 
I must tell you, sir, that those evil ones touch not the great 
calm of her soul. She lives her own pure and loving life, 
unharmed and untainted, though all men fall off from her. 
I would I could have her faith ! ” 

My uncle now spoke. 

“ Nephew,” said he, “ it seems to me that this gentleman, 
although professing what I consider an erroneous creed, has 
touched upon the right point in exhorting Bridget to acts of 
love and mercy, whereby to wipe out her sin of hate and 
vengeance. Let us strive after our fashion, by almsgiving 
and visiting of the needy and fatherless, to make our prayers 
acceptable. Meanwhile, I myself will go down into the 
north, and take charge of the maiden. I am too old to be 
daunted by man or demon. I will bring her to this house 
as to a home ; and let the Double come if it will ! A com- 
pany of godly divines shall give it the meeting, and we will 
try issue.’ 

381 


The Poor Clare 

The kindly, brave old man ! But Father Bernard sat on 
musing. 

“ All hate,” said he, “ cannot be quenched in her heart ; 
all Christian forgiveness cannot have entered into her soul, 
or the demon would have lost its power. You said, I think, 
that her grandchild was still tormented ? ” 

“ Still tormented ! ” I replied sadly, thinking of Mistress 
Clarke’s last letter. 

He rose to go. We afterwards heard that the occasion 
of his coming to London was a secret political mission on 
behalf of the Jacobites. Nevertheless, he was a good and a 
wise man. 

Months and months passed away without any change. 
Lucy entreated my uncle to leave her where she was — 
dreading, as I learnt, lest if she came, with her fearful 
companion, to dwell in the same house with me, that my 
love could not stand the repeated shocks to which I should 
be doomed. And this she thought from no distrust of the 
strength of my affection, but from a kind of pitying sympathy 
for the terror to the nerves which she clearly observed that 
the demoniac visitation caused in all. 

I was restless and miserable. I devoted myself to good 
works ; but I performed them from no spirit of love, but 
solely from the hope of reward and payment, and so the 
reward was never granted. At length, I asked my uncle’s 
leave to travel; and I went forth, a wanderer, with no 
distincter end than that of many another wanderer — to get 
away from myself. A strange impulse led me to Antwerp, 
in spite of the wars and commotions then raging in the Low 
Countries — or rather, perhaps, the very craving to become 
interested in something external, led me into the thick of 
the struggle then going on with the Austrians. The cities 
of Flanders were all full at that time of civil disturbances 
and rebellions, only kept down by force and the presence of 
an Austrian garrison in every place. 

I arrived in Antwerp, and made inquiry for Father 
Bernard. He was away in the country for a day or two. 

382 


The Poor Clare 

Then I asked my way to the Convent of Poor Clares ; but, 
being healthy and prosperous, I could only see the dim, 
pent-up, grey walls, shut closely in by narrow streets, in the 
lowest part of the town. My landlord told me that, had I been 
stricken by some loathsome disease, or in desperate case of 
any kind, the Poor Clares would have taken me, and tended 
me. He spoke of them as an order of mercy of the strictest 
kind ; dressing scantily in the coarsest materials ; going bare- 
foot; living on what the inhabitants of Antwerp chose to 
bestow, and sharing even those fragments and crumbs with 
the poor and helpless that swarmed all around ; receiving no 
letters or communication with the outer world ; utterly dead 
to everything but the alleviation of suffering. He smiled at 
my inquiring whether I could get speech of one of them, 
and told me that they were even forbidden to speak for the 
purposes of begging their daily food ; while yet they lived, 
and fed others upon what was given in charity. 

“ But,” exclaimed I, “ supposing all men forgot them ? 
Would they quietly he down and die, without making sign 
of their extremity ? ” 

“ If such were the rule, the Poor Clares would willingly 
do it ; but their founder appointed a remedy for such ex- 
treme cases as you suggest. They have a bell — ’tis but a 
small one, as I have heard, and has yet never been rung in 
the memory of man : when the Poor Clares have been 
without food for twenty-four hours, they may ring this bell, 
and then trust to our good people of Antwerp for rushing to 
the rescue of the Poor Clares, who have taken such blessed 
care of us in all our straits.” 

It seemed to me that such rescue would be late in the 
day ; but I did not say what I thought. I rather turned the 
conversation, by asking my landlord if he knew, or had ever 
heard, anything of a certain Sister Magdalen. 

“ Yes, ” said he, rather under his breath, “ news will creep 
out, even from a convent of Poor Clares. Sister Magdalen 
is either a great sinner or a great saint. She does more, as 
I have heard, than all the other nuns put together; yet, 

383 


The Poor Clare 

when last month they would fain have made her mother 
superior, she begged rather that they would place her below 
all the rest, and make her the meanest servant of all.” 

“ You never saw her ? ” asked I. 

“ Never,” he replied. 

I was weary of waiting for Father Bernard, and yet I 
lingered in Antwerp. The political state of things became 
worse than ever, increased to its height by the scarcity of 
food consequent on many deficient harvests. I saw groups 
of fierce, squalid men at every corner of the street, glaring 
out with wolfish eyes at my sleek skin and handsome 
clothes. 

At last Father Bernard returned. We had a long con- 
versation, in which he told me that, curiously enough, Mr. 
Gisborne, Lucy’s father, was serving in one of the Austrian 
regiments, then in garrison at Antwerp. I asked Father 
Bernard if he would make us acquainted; which he con- 
sented to do. But, a day or two afterwards, he told me that, 
on hearing my name, Mr. Gisborne had declined responding 
to any advances on my part, saying he had abjured his 
country, and hated his countrymen. 

Probably he recollected my name in connection with that 
of his daughter Lucy. Anyhow, it was clear enough that I 
had no chance of making his acquaintance. Father Bernard 
confirmed me in my suspicions of the hidden fermentation, 
for some coming evil, working among the “blouses” of 
Antwerp, and he would fain have had me depart out of the 
city; but I rather craved the excitement of danger, and 
stubbornly refused to leave. 

One day, when I was walking with him in the Place 
Verte, he bowed to an Austrian officer, who was crossing 
towards the cathedral. 

“ That is Mr. Gisborne,” said he, as soon as the gentleman 
was past. 

I turned to look at the tall, slight figure of the officer. 
He carried himself in a stately manner, although he was 
past middle age. and from his years might have had some 

384 


The Poor Clare 

excuse for a slight stoop. As I looked at the man, he turned 
round, his eyes met mine, and I saw his face. Deeply hned, 
sahow, and scathed was that countenance ; scarred by passion 
as well as by the fortunes of war. ’Twas but a moment 
our eyes met. We each turned round, and went on our 
separate way. 

But his whole appearance was not one to be easily for- 
gotten ; the thorough appointment of the dress, and evident 
thought bestowed on it, made but an incongruous whole with 
the dark, gloomy expression of his countenance. Because 
he was Lucy’s father, I sought instinctively to meet him 
everywhere. At last he must have become aware of my 
pertinacity, for he gave me a haughty scowl whenever I 
passed him. In one of these encounters, however, I chanced 
to be of some service to him. He was turning the corner of 
a street, and came suddenly on one of the groups of dis- 
contented Flemings of whom I have spoken. Some words 
were exchanged, when my gentleman out with his sword, 
and with a slight but skilful cut drew blood from one of 
those who had insulted him, as he fancied, though I was too 
far off to hear the words. They would all have fallen upon 
him had I not rushed forwards and raised the cry, then 
well known in Antwerp, of rally, to the Austrian soldiers 
who were perpetually patrolling the streets, and who came 
in numbers to the rescue. I think that neither Mr. Gisborne 
nor the mutinous group of plebeians owed me much gratitude 
for my interference. He had planted himself against a wall, 
in a skilful attitude of fence, ready with his bright glancing 
rapier to do battle with all the heavy, fierce, unarmed men, 
some six or seven in number. But when his own soldiers 
came up, he sheathed his sword ; and, giving some careless 
word of command, sent them away again, and continued his 
saunter all alone down the street, the workmen snarling in 
his rear, and more than half-inclined to fall on me for my 
cry for rescue. I cared not if they did, my life seemed so 
dreary a burden just then ; and, perhaps, it was this daring 
loitering among them that prevented their attacking me. 

385 2 c 


The Poor Clare 

Instead, they suffered me to fall into conversation with 
them; and I heard some of their grievances. Sore and 
heavy to be borne were they, and no wonder the sufferers 
were savage and desperate. 

The man whom Gisborne had wounded across his face 
would fain have got out of me the name of his aggressor ; 
but I refused to tell it. Another of the group heard his 
inquiry, and made answer— 

“ I know the man. He is one Gisborne, aide-de-camp to 
the General-Commandant. I know him well.” 

He began to tell some story in connection with Gisborne 
in a low and muttering voice ; and while he was relating a 
tale, which I saw excited their evil blood, and which they 
evidently wished me not to hear, I sauntered away and 
back to my lodgings. 

That night Antwerp was in open revolt. The inhabi- 
tants rose in rebellion against their Austrian masters. The 
Austrians, holding the gates of the city, remained at first 
pretty quiet in the citadel ; only, from time to time, the 
boom of the great cannon swept sullenly over the town. 
But if they expected the disturbance to die away, and spend 
itself in a few hours’ fury, they were mistaken. In a day 
or two, the rioters held possession of the principal municipal 
buildings. Then the Austrians poured forth in bright, 
flaming array, calm and smiling, as they marched to the 
posts assigned, as if the fierce mob were no more to them 
than the swarms of buzzing summer flies. Their practised 
manoeuvres, their well-aimed shot, told with terrible effect ; 
but in the place of one slain rioter three sprang up of his 
blood to avenge his loss. But a deadly foe, a ghastly ally 
of the Austrians, was at work. Food, scarce and dear for 
months, was now hardly to be obtained at any price. 
Desperate efforts were being made to bring provisions into 
the city, for the rioters had friends without. Close to the 
city port, nearest to the Scheldt, a great struggle took place. 
I was there, helping the rioters, whose cause I had adopted. 
We had a savage encounter with the Austrians. Numbers 

386 


The Poor Clare 

fell on both sides ; I saw them lie bleeding for a moment ; 
then a volley of smoke obscured them ; and, when it cleared 
away, they were dead — trampled upon or smothered, pressed 
down and hidden by the freshly- wounded whom those last 
guns had brought low. And then a grey-robed and grey- 
veiled figure came right across the flashing guns and stooped 
over some one, whose life-blood was ebbing away; some- 
times it was to give him drink from cans which they carried 
slung at their sides ; sometimes I saw the cross held above 
a dying man, and rapid prayers were being uttered, unheard 
by men in that hellish din and clangour, but listened to by 
One above. I saw all this as in a dream : the reality of 
that stern time was battle and carnage. But I knew that 
these grey figures, their bare feet all wet with blood, and 
their faces hidden by their veils, were the Poor Clares — sent 
forth now because dire agony was abroad and imminent 
danger at hand. Therefore, they left their cloistered shelter, 
and came into that thick and evil melee. 

Close to me — driven past me by the struggle of many 
fighters — came the Antwerp burgess with the scarce-healed 
scar upon his face ; and, in an instant more, he was thrown 
by the press upon the Austrian officer Gisborne, and ere 
either had recovered the shock, the burgess had recognised 
his opponent. 

“ Ha ! the Englishman Gisborne ! ” he cried, and threw 
himself upon him with redoubled fury. He had struck him 
hard — the Englishman was down : when out of the smoke 
came a dark-grey figure, and threw herself right under the 
uplifted flashing sword. The burgess’s arm stood arrested. 
Neither Austrians nor Anversois willingly harmed the Poor 
Clares. 

“ Leave him to me ! ” said a low, stern voice. “ He is 
mine enemy — mine for many years.” 

Those words were the last I heard. I myself was struck 
down by a bullet. I remember nothing more for days. 
When I came to myself, I was at the extremity of weak- 
ness, and was craving for food to recruit my strength. My 

387 


The Poor Clare 

landlord sat watching me. He, too, looked pinched and 
shrunken ; he had heard of my wounded state, and sought 
me out. Yes! the struggle still continued, but the famine 
was sore : and some, he had heard, had died for lack of 
food. The tears stood in his eyes as he spoke. But soon 
he shook off his weakness, and his natural cheerfulness 
returned. Father Bernard had been to see me — no one 
else. (Who should, indeed ? ) Father Bernard would come 
back that afternoon — he had promised. But Father Bernard 
never came, although I was up and dressed, and looking 
eagerly for him. 

My landlord brought me a meal which he had cooked 
himself ; of what it was composed he would not say, but it 
was most excellent, and with every mouthful I seemed to 
gain strength. The good man sat looking at my evident 
enjoyment with a happy smile of sympathy; but, as my 
appetite became satisfied, I began to detect a certain wist- 
fulness in his eyes, as if craving for the food I had so nearly 
devoured — for, indeed, at that time I was hardly aware of 
the extent of the famine. Suddenly, there was a sound of 
many rushing feet past our window. My landlord opened 
one of the sides of it, the better to learn what was going on. 
Then we heard a faint, cracked, tinkling bell, coming shrill 
upon the air, clear and distinct from all other sounds. “ Holy 
Mother ! ” exclaimed my landlord, “ the Poor Clares ! ” 

He snatched up the fragments of my meal, and crammed 
them into my hands, bidding me follow. Downstairs he ran, 
clutching at more food, as the women of his house eagerly 
held it out to him ; and in a moment we were in the street, 
moving along with the great current, all tending towards the 
Convent of the Poor Clares. And still, as if piercing our ears 
with its inarticulate cry, came the shrill tinkle of the bell. 
In that strange crowd were old men trembling and sobbing, 
as they carried their little pittance of food ; women with tears 
running down their cheeks, who had snatched up what 
provisions they had in the vessels in which they stood, so 
that the burden of these was in many cases much greater 

388 


The Poor Clare 

than that which they contained ; children, with flushed faces, 
grasping tight the morsel of bitten cake or bread, in their 
eagerness to carry it safe to the help of the Poor Clares ; 
strong men — yea, both Anversois and Austrians — pressing 
onward with set teeth, and no word spoken ; and over all, 
and through all, came that sharp tinkle — that cry for help in 
extremity. 

We met the first torrent of people returning with blanched 
and piteous faces ; they were issuing out of the convent to 
make way for the offerings of others. “ Haste, haste ! ” said 
they. “ A Poor Clare is dying ! A Poor Clare is dead for 
hunger ! God forgive us and our city ! ” 

We pressed on. The stream bore us along where it 
would. We were carried through refectories, bare and 
crumbless ; into cells over whose doors the conventual name 
of the occupant was written. Thus it was that I, with 
others, was forced into Sister Magdalen’s cell. On her 
couch lay Gisborne, pale unto death, but not dead. By his 
side was a cup of water, and a small morsel of mouldy bread, 
which he had pushed out of his reach and could not move 
to obtain. Over against his bed were these words, copied in 
the English version : “ Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, 
feed him ; if he thirst, give him drink.” 

Some of us gave him of our food, and left him eating 
greedily, like some famished wild animal. For now it was 
no longer the sharp tinkle, but that one solemn toll, which 
in all Christian countries tells of the passing of the spirit out 
of earthly life into eternity ; and again a murmur gathered 
and grew, as of many people speaking with awed breath, 
“ A Poor Clare is dying ! a Poor Clare is dead ! ” 

Borne along once more by the motion of the crowd, we 
were carried into the chapel belonging to the Poor Clares. 
On a bier before the high altar, lay a woman — lay Sister 
Magdalen — lay Bridget Fitzgerald. By her side stood Father 
Bernard, in his robes of office, and holding the crucifix on 
high while he pronounced the solemn absolution of the 
Church, as on one who had newly confessed herself of deadly 

3 % 


The Poor Clare 

sin. I pushed on with passionate force, till I stood close to 
the dying woman, as she received extreme unction amid the 
breathless and awed hush of the multitude around. Her 
eyes were glazing, her limbs were stiffening ; but, when the 
rite was over and finished, she raised her gaunt figure slowly 
up, and her eyes brightened to a strange intensity of joy, as, 
with the gesture of her finger and the trance-like gleam of 
her eye, she seemed like one who watched the disappearance 
of some loathed and fearful creature. 

“ She is freed from the curse ! ” said she, as she fell back 
dead. 


Now, of all our party who had first listened to “ My Lady 
Ludlow,” Mr. Preston was the only one who had not told us 
something, either of information, tradition, history, or legend. 
We naturally turned to him ; but we did not like asking him 
directly for his contribution, for he was a grave, reserved, and 
silent man. 

He understood us, however, and, rousing himself as it 
were, he said — 

“ I know you wish me to tell you, in my turn, of some- 
thing which I have learnt during my life. I could tell you 
something of my own life, and of a life dearer still to my 
memory; but I have shrunk from narrating anything so 
purely personal. Yet, shrink as I will, no other but those 
sad recollections will present themselves to my mind. I call 
them sad when I think of the end of it all. However, I am 
not going to moralise. If my dear brother’s life and death 
does not speak for itself, no words of mine will teach you 
what may be learnt from it.” 


390 


THE HALF-BROTHERS 


My mother was twice married. She never spoke of her first 
husband, and it is only from other people that I have learnt 
what little I know about him. I believe she was scarcely 
seventeen when she was married to him : and he was barely 
one-and-twenty. He rented a small farm up in Cumberland, 
somewhere towards the sea-coast ; but he was perhaps too 
young and inexperienced to have the charge of land and 
cattle : anyhow, his affairs did not prosper, and he fell into 
ill health, and died of consumption before they had been 
three years man and wife, leaving my mother a young 
widow of twenty, with a little child only just able to walk, 
and the farm on her hands for four years more by the lease, 
with half the stock on it dead or sold off one by one to pay 
the more pressing debts, and with no money to purchase 
more, or even to buy the provisions needed for the small 
consumption of every day. There was another child coming, 
too ; and sad and sorry, I believe, she was to think of it. 
A dreary winter she must have had in her lonesome dwelling, 
with never another near it for miles around ; her sister came 
to bear her company, and they two planned and plotted 
how to make every penny they could raise go as far as 
possible. I can’t tell you how it happened that my little 
sister, whom I never saw, came to sicken and die ; but, as 
if my poor mother’s cup was not full enough, only a fort- 
night before Gregory was born the little girl took ill of 
scarlet fever, and in a week she lay dead. My mother was, 
I believe, just stunned with this last blow. My aunt has 
told me that she did not cry ; aunt Fanny would have been 

39i 


The Half-brothers 

thankful if she had ; but she sat holding the poor wee lassie’s 
hand, and looking in her pretty pale, dead face, without so 
much as shedding a tear. And it was all the same, when 
they had to take her away to be buried. She just kissed 
the child, and sat her down in the window-seat to watch 
the little black train of people (neighbours— my aunt, and 
one far-off cousin, who were all the friends they could 
muster) go winding away amongst the snow, which had 
fallen thinly over the country the night before. When my 
aunt came back from the funeral, she found my mother in 
the same place, and as dry-eyed as ever. So she continued 
until after Gregory was born; and, somehow, his coming 
seemed to loosen the tears, and she cried day and night, 
till my aunt and the other watcher looked at each other 
in dismay, and would fain have stopped her if they had 
but known how. But she bade them let her alone, and not 
be over-anxious, for every drop she shed eased her brain, 
which had been in a terrible state before for want of the 
power to cry. She seemed after that to think of nothing 
but her new little baby ; she had hardly appeared to re- 
member either her husband or her little daughter that lay 
dead in Brigham churchyard — at least so aunt Fanny said ; 
but she was a great talker, and my mother was very silent 
by nature, and I think aunt Fanny may have been mistaken 
in believing that my mother never thought of her husband 
and child just because she never spoke about them. Aunt 
Fanny was older than my mother, and had a way of treating 
her like a child ; but, for all that, she was a kind, warm- 
hearted creature, who thought more of her sister’s welfare 
than she did of her own ; and it was on her bit of money 
that they principally lived, and on what the two could earn 
by working for the great Glasgow sewing-merchants. But 
by-and-by my mother’s eyesight began to fail. It was not 
that she was exactly blind, for she could see well enough 
to guide herself about the house, and to do a good deal of 
domestic work ; but she could no longer do fine sewing and 
earn money. It must have been with the heavy crying 

39 2 


The Half-brothers 

she had had in her day, for she was but a young creature 
at this time, and as pretty a young woman, I have heard 
people say, as any on the country side. She took it sadly 
to heart that she could no longer gain anything towards 
the keep of herself and her child. My aunt Fanny would 
fain have persuaded her that she had enough to do in 
managing their cottage and minding Gregory ; but my 
mother knew that they were pinched, and that aunt Fanny 
herself had not as much to eat, even of the commonest 
kind of food, as she could have done with; and as for 
Gregory, he was not a strong lad, and needed, not more 
food — for he always had enough, whoever went short— but 
better nourishment, and more flesh-meat. One day — it was 
aunt Fanny who told me all this about my poor mother, 
long after her death— as the sisters were sitting together, 
aunt Fanny working, and my mother hushing Gregory to 
sleep, William Preston, who was afterwards my father, came 
in. He was reckoned an old bachelor ; I suppose he was 
long past forty, and he was one of the wealthiest farmers 
thereabouts, and had known my grandfather well, and my 
mother and my aunt in their more prosperous days. He 
sat down, and began to twirl his hat by way of being agree- 
able ; my aunt Fanny talked, and he listened and looked at 
my mother. But he said very little, either on that visit, or 
on many another that he paid before he spoke out what had 
been the real purpose of his calling so often all along, and 
from the very first time he came to their house. One 
Sunday, however, my aunt Fanny stayed away from church, 
and took care of the child, and my mother went alone. 
When she came back, she ran straight upstairs, without 
going into the kitchen to look at Gregory or speak any 
word to her sister, and aunt Fanny heard her cry as if her 
heart was breaking ; so she went up and scolded her right 
well through the bolted door, till at last she got her to open 
it. And then she threw herself on my aunt’s neck, and 
told her that William Preston had asked her to marry him, 
and had promised to take good charge of her boy, and to 

393 


The Half-brothers 

let him want for nothing, neither in the way of keep nor 
of education, and that she had consented. Aunt Fanny 
was a good deal shocked at this ; for, as I have said, she 
had often thought that my mother had forgotten her first 
husband very quickly, and now here was proof positive of 
it, if she could so soon think of marrying again. Besides, 
as aunt Fanny used to say, she herself would have been a 
far more suitable match for a man of William Preston’s age 
than Helen, who, though she was a widow, had not seen 
her four-and-twentieth summer. However, as aunt Fanny 
said, they had not asked her advice; and there was much 
to be said on the other side of the question. Helen’s eye- 
sight would never be good for much again, and as William 
Preston’s wife she would never need to do anything, if she 
chose to sit with her hands before her; and a boy was a 
great charge to a widowed mother; and now there would 
be a decent, steady man to see after him. So, by-and-by, 
aunt Fanny seemed to take a brighter view of the marriage 
than did my mother herself, who hardly ever looked up, 
and never smiled after the day when she promised William 
Preston to be his wife. But much as she had loved Gregory 
before, she seemed to love him more now. She was con- 
tinually talking to him when they were alone, though he 
was far too young to understand her moaning words, or 
give her any comfort, except by his caresses. 

At last William Preston and she were wed; and she 
went to be mistress of a well-stocked house, not above half- 
an-hour’s walk from where aunt Fanny lived. I believe 
she did all that she could to please my father ; and a more 
dutiful wife, I have heard him himself say, could never have 
been. But she did not love him, and he soon found it out. 
She loved Gregory, and she did not love him. Perhaps, love 
would have come in time, if he had been patient enough 
to wait ; but it just turned him sour to see how her eye 
brightened and her colour came at the sight of that little 
child, while for him who had given her so much she had 
only gentle words as cold as ice. He got to taunt her with 

394 


The Half-brothers 

the difference in her manner, as if that would bring love; 
and he took a positive dislike to Gregory — he was so jealous 
of the ready love that always gushed out like a spring of 
fresh water when he came near. He wanted her to love 
him more, and perhaps that was all well and good ; but he 
wanted her to love her child less, and that was an evil wish. 
One day, he gave way to his temper, and cursed and swore 
at Gregory, who had got into some mischief, as children 
will ; my mother made some excuse for him ; my father said 
it was hard enough to have to keep another man’s child, 
without having it perpetually held up in its naughtiness by 
his wife, who ought to be always in the same mind that he 
was ; and so from little they got to more ; and the end of it 
was, that my mother took to her bed before her time, and 
I was born that very day. My father was glad, and proud, 
and sorry, all in a breath ; glad and proud that a son was 
born to him ; and sorry for his poor wife’s state, and to think 
how his angry words had brought it on. But he was a man 
who liked better to be angry than sorry ; so he soon found 
out that it was all Gregory’s fault, and owed him an addi- 
tional grudge for having hastened my birth. He had another 
grudge against him before long. My mother began to sink 
the day after I was bom. My father sent to Carlisle for 
doctors, and would have coined his heart’s blood into gold 
to save her, if that could have been ; but it could not. My 
aunt Fanny used to say sometimes that she thought that 
Helen did not wish to live, and so just let herself die away 
without trying to take hold on life ; but, when I questioned 
her, she owned that my mother did all the doctors bade her 
do, with the same sort of uncomplaining patience with which 
she had acted through life. One of her last requests was to 
have Gregory laid in her bed by my side, and then she made 
him take hold of my little hand. Her husband came in 
while she was looking at us so ; and, when he bent tenderly 
over her to ask her how she felt now, and seemed to gaze 
on us two little half-brothers, with a grave sort of kindliness, 
she looked up in his face and smiled, almost her first smile 

395 


The Half-brothers 

at him ; and such a sweet smile ! as more besides aunt 
Fanny have said. In an hour she was dead. Aunt Fanny 
came to live with us. It was the best thing that could be 
done. My father would have been glad to return to his old 
mode of bachelor life, but what could he do with two little 
children? He needed a woman to take care of him, and 
who so fitting as his wife’s elder sister? So she had the 
charge of me from my birth ; and for a time I was weakly, 
as was but natural, and she was always beside me, night 
and day watching over me, and my father nearly as anxious 
as she. For his land had come down from father to son for 
more than three hundred years, and he would have cared 
for me merely as his flesh and blood that was to inherit the 
land after him. But he needed something to love, for all 
that, to most people, he was a stern, hard man ; and he took 
to me as, I fancy, he had taken to no human being before — 
as he might have taken to my mother, if she had had no 
former life for him to be jealous of. I loved him back again 
right heartily. I loved all around me, I believe, for every- 
body was kind to me. After a time, I overcame my original 
weakliness of constitution, and was just a bonny, strong - 
looking lad, whom every passer-by noticed when my father 
took me with him to the nearest town. 

At home I was the darling of my aunt, the tenderly- 
beloved of my father, the pet and plaything of the old 
domestics, the “ young master ” of the farm -labourers, before 
whom I played many a lordly antic, assuming a sort of 
authority which sat oddly enough, I doubt not, on such a 
baby as I was. 

Gregory was three years older than I. Aunt Fanny was 
always kind to him in deed and in action, but she did not 
often think about him, she had fallen so completely into the 
habit of being engrossed by me, from the fact of my having 
come into her charge as a delicate baby. My father never 
got over his grudging dislike to his stepson, who had so 
innocently wrestled with him for the possession of my 
mother’s heart. I mistrust me, too, that my father always 

396 


The Half-brothers 

considered him as the cause of my mother’s death and my 
early delicacy ; and, utterly unreasonable as this may seem, 
I believe my father rather cherished his feeling of alienation 
to my brother as a duty than strove to repress it. Yet not 
for the world would my father have grudged him anything 
that money could purchase. That was, as it were, in the bond 
when he had wedded my mother. Gregory was lumpish and 
loutish, awkward and ungainly, marring whatever he meddled 
in ; and many a hard word and sharp scolding did he get from 
the people about the farm, who hardly waited till my father’s 
back was turned before they rated the stepson. I am 
ashamed — my heart is sore to think how I fell into the 
fashion of the family, and slighted my poor orphan step- 
brother. I don’t think I ever scouted him, or was wilfully 
ill-natured to him ; but the habit of being considered in all 
things, and being treated as something uncommon and 
superior, made me insolent in my prosperity, and I exacted 
more than Gregory was always willing to grant ; and then, 
irritated, I sometimes repeated the disparaging words I had 
heard others use with regard to him, without fully under- 
standing their meaning. Whether he did or not I cannot 
tell. I am afraid he did. He used to turn silent and quiet 
— sullen and sulky, my father thought it : stupid, aunt Fanny 
used to call it. But every one said he was stupid and dull, 
and this stupidity and dulness grew upon him. He would 
sit without speaking a word, sometimes, for hours ; then my 
father would bid him rise and do some piece of work, may 
be, about the farm. And he would take three or four 
tellings before he would go. When we were sent to school, 
it was all the same. He could never be made to remember 
his lessons; the schoolmaster grew weary of scolding and 
flogging, and at last advised my father just to take him 
away, and set him to some f arm-work that might not be 
above his comprehension. I think he was more gloomy and 
stupid than ever after this ; yet he was not a cross lad ; he 
was patient and good-natured, and would try to do a kind 
turn for any one, even if they had been scolding or cuffing 

397 


The Half-brothers 

him not a minute before. But very often his attempts at 
kindness ended in some mischief to the very people he was 
trying to serve, owing to his awkward, ungainly ways. I 
suppose I was a clever lad ; at any rate, I always got plenty 
of praise, and was, as we called it, the cock of the school. 
The schoolmaster said I could learn anything I chose ; but 
my father, who had no great learning himself, saw little use 
in much for me, and took me away betimes, and kept me 
with him about the farm. Gregory was made into a kind of 
shepherd, receiving his training under old Adam, who was 
nearly past his work. I think old Adam was almost the 
first person who had a good opinion of Gregory. He stood 
to it that my brother had good parts, though he did not 
rightly know how to bring them out ; and, for knowing the 
bearings of the Fells, he said he had never seen a lad like 
him: My father would try to bring Adam round to speak of 
Gregory’s faults and shortcomings ; but, instead of that, he 
would praise him twice as much, as soon as he found out 
what was my father’s object. 

One winter-time, when I was about sixteen, and Gregory 
nineteen, I was sent by my father on an errand to a place 
about seven miles distant by the road, but only about four 
by the Fells. He bade me return by the road, whichever 
way I took in going, for the evenings closed in early, and 
were often thick and misty ; besides which, old Adam, now 
paralytic and bedridden, foretold a downfall of snow before 
long. I soon got to my journey’s end, and soon had done 
my business ; earlier by an hour, I thought, than my father 
had expected, so I took the decision of the way by which I 
would return into my own hands, and set off back again over 
the Fells, just as the first shades of evening began to fall. 
It looked dark and gloomy enough ; but everything was so 
still that I thought I should have plenty of time to get home 
before the snow came down. Off I set at a pretty quick 
pace. But night came on quicker. The right path was clear 
enough in the daytime, although at several points two or 
three exactly similar diverged from the same place; but 

398 


The Half-brothers 

when there was a good light, the traveller was guided by the 
sight of distant objects, — a piece of rock — a fall in the 
ground — which were quite invisible to me now. I plucked 
up a brave heart, however, and took what seemed to me the 
right road. It was wrong, nevertheless, and led me whither 
I knew not, but to some wild boggy moor where the solitude 
seemed painful, intense, as if never footfall of man had come 
thither to break the silence. I tried to shout — with the 
dimmest possible hope of being heard — rather to reassure 
myself by the sound of my own voice ; but my voice came 
husky and short, and yet it dismayed me ; it seemed so 
weird and strange, in that noiseless expanse of black dark- 
ness. Suddenly the air was filled thick with dusky flakes, 
my face and hands were wet with snow. It cut me off from 
the slightest knowledge of where I was, for I lost every idea 
of the direction from which I had come, so that I could not 
even retrace my steps ; it hemmed me in, thicker, thicker, 
with a darkness that might be felt. The boggy soil on 
which I stood quaked under me if I remained long in one 
place, and yet I dared not move far. All my youthful hardi- 
ness seemed to leave me at once. I was on the point of 
crying, and only very shame seemed tp keep it down. To 
save myself from shedding tears, I shouted — terrible, wild 
shouts for bare life they were. I turned sick as I paused to 
listen ; no answering sound came but the unfeeling echoes. 
Only the noiseless, pitiless snow kept falling thicker, thicker 
— faster, faster ! I was growing numb and sleepy. I tried 
to move about, but I dared not go far, for fear of the pre- 
cipices which, I knew, abounded in certain places on the 
Fells. Now and then, I stood still and shouted again ; but 
my voice was getting choked with tears, as I thought of the 
desolate helpless death I was to die, and how little they at 
home, sitting round the warm, red, bright fire, wotted what 
was become of me — and how my poor father would grieve 
for me— it would surely kill him — it would break his heart, 
poor old man ! Aunt Fanny too — was this to be the end of 
all her cares for me ? I began to review my life in a strange 

399 


The Half-brothers 

kind of vivid dream, in which the various scenes of my few 
boyish years passed before me like visions. In a pang of 
agony, caused by such remembrance of my short life, I 
gathered up my strength and called out once more — a long, 
despairing, wailing cry, to which I had no hope of obtaining 
any answer, save from the echoes around, dulled as the sound 
might be by the thickened air. To my surprise I heard a cry 
— almost as long, as wild as mine — so wild, that it seemed 
unearthly, and I almost thought it must be the voice of some 
of the mocking spirits of the Fells, about whom I had heard 
so many tales. My heart suddenly began to beat fast and 
loud. I could not reply for a minute or two. I nearly 
fancied I had lost the power of utterance. Just at this 
moment a dog barked. Was it Lassie’s bark — my brother’s 
collie ? — an ugly enough brute, with a white, ill-looking face, 
that my father always kicked whenever he saw it, partly for 
its own demerits, partly because it belonged to my brother. 
On such occasions, Gregory would whistle Lassie away, and 
go off and sit with her in some outhouse. My father had 
once or twice been ashamed of* himself, when the poor 
collie had yowled out with the suddenness of the pain, and 
had relieved himself of his self-reproach by blaming my 
brother, who, he said, had no notion of training a dog, and 
was enough to ruin any collie in Christendom with his 
stupid way of allowing them to lie by the kitchen fire. To 
all which Gregory would answer nothing, nor even seem 
to hear, but go on looking absent and moody. 

Yes ! there again ! It was Lassie’s bark ! Now or 
never ! I lifted up my voice and shouted “ Lassie ! Lassie ! 
for God’s sake, Lassie ! ” Another moment, and the great 
white-faced Lassie was curving and gambolling with delight 
round my feet and legs, looking, however, up in my face 
with her intelligent, apprehensive eyes, as if fearing lest I 
might greet her with a blow, as I had done oftentimes before. 
But I cried with gladness, as I stooped down and patted her. 
My mind was sharing in my body’s weakness, and I could 
not reason, but I knew that help was at hand. A grey figure 

400 


The Half-brothers 

came more and more distinctly out of the thick, close-pressing 
darkness. It was Gregory wrapped in his maud. 

“ Oh, Gregory ! ” said I, and I fell upon his neck, unable 
to speak another word. He never spoke much, and made 
me no answer for some little time. Then he told me we 
must move, we must walk for the dear life — we must find 
our road home, if possible ; but we must move, or we should 
be frozen to death. 

“ Don’t you know the way home ? ” asked I. 

“ I thought I did when I set out, but I arp. doubtful now. 
The snow blinds me, and I am feared that, in moving about 
just now, I have lost the right gait homewards.” 

He had his shepherd’s staff with him, and by dint of 
plunging it before us at every step we took — clinging close 
to each other, we went on safely enough, as far as not falling 
down any of the steep rocks ; but it was slow, dreary work. 
My brother, I saw, was more guided by Lassie and the way 
she took than anything else, trusting to her instinct. It was 
too dark to see far before us ; but he called her back con- 
tinually, and noted from what quarter she returned, and 
shaped our slow steps accordingly. But the tedious motion 
scarcely kept my very blood from freezing. Every bone, 
every fibre in my body seemed first to ache, and then to 
swell, and then to turn numb with the intense cold. My 
brother bore it better than I, from having been more out 
upon the hills. He did not speak, except to call Lassie. I 
strove to be brave, and not complain ; but now I felt the 
deadly fatal sleep stealing over me. 

“ I can go no farther,” I said, in a drowsy tone. I re- 
member I suddenly became dogged and resolved. Sleep I 
would, were it only for five minutes. If death were to be 
the consequence, sleep I would. Gregory stood still. I 
suppose, he recognised the peculiar phase of suffering to 
which I had been brought by the cold. 

“ It is of no use,” said he, as if to himself. “ We are no 
nearer home than we were when we started, as far as I can 
tell. Our only chance is in Lassie.. Here ! roll thee in my 

401 2 D 


The Half-brothers 

maud, lad, and lay thee down on this sheltered side of this 
bit of rock. Creep close under it, lad, and I’ll lie by thee, 
and strive to keep the warmth in us. Stay ! hast gotten 
aught about thee they’ll know at home ? ” 

I felt him unkind thus to keep me from slumber ; but, on 
his repeating the question, I pulled out my pocket-handker- 
chief, of some showy pattern, which aunt Fanny had hemmed 
for me. Gregory took it, and tied it round Lassie’s neck. 

“ Hie thee, Lassie, hie thee home ! ” And the white- 
faced ill-favoured brute was off like a shot in the darkness. 
Now I might lie down — now I might sleep. In my drowsy 
stupor I felt that I was being tenderly covered up by my 
brother ; but what with I neither knew nor cared — I was too 
dull, too selfish, too numb to think and reason, or I might 
have known that in that bleak bare place there was naught 
to wrap me in, save what was taken off another. I was glad 
enough when he ceased his cares and lay down by me. I 
took his hand. 

“ Thou canst not remember, lad, how we lay together 
thus by our dying mother. She put thy small, wee hand in 
mine — I reckon she sees us now ; and belike we shall soon 
be with her. Anyhow, God’s will be done.” 

“ Dear Gregory,” I muttered, and crept nearer to him for 
warmth. He was talking still, and again about our mother, 
when I fell asleep. In an instant — or so it seemed — there 
were many voices about me — many faces hovering round me 
— the sweet luxury of warmth was stealing into every part of 
me. I was in my own little bed at home. I am thankful to 
say, my first word was “ Gregory ? ” 

A look passed from one to another — my father’s stern 
old face strove in vain to keep its sternness ; his mouth 
quivered, his eyes filled slowly with unwonted tears. 

“ I would have given him half my land — I would have 
blessed him as my son — Oh, God ! I would have knelt at his 
feet, and asked him to forgive my hardness of heart.” 

I heard no more. A whirl came through my brain, 
catching me back to death. 


402 


The Half-brothers 

I came slowly to my consciousness, weeks afterwards. 
My father’s hair was white when I recovered, and his hands 
shook as he looked into my face. 

We spoke no more of Gregory. We could not speak of 
him ; but he was strangely in our thoughts. Lassie came 
and went with never a word of blame ; nay, my father 
would try to stroke her, but she shrank away ; and he, as if 
reproved by the poor dumb beast, would sigh, and be silent 
and abstracted for a time. 

Aunt Fanny — always a talker — told me all. How, on 
that fatal night, my father, irritated by my prolonged absence, 
and probably more anxious than he cared to show, had been 
fierce and imperious, even beyond his wont, to Gregory; 
had upbraided him with his father’s poverty, his own 
stupidity which made his services good for nothing — for so, 
in spite of the old shepherd, my father always chose to 
consider them. At last, Gregory had risen up, and whistled 
Lassie out with him — poor Lassie, crouching underneath his 
chair for fear of a kick or a blow. Some time before, there 
had been some talk between my father and my aunt respect- 
ing my return ; and, when aunt Fanny told me all this, she 
said she fancied that Gregory might have noticed the coming 
storm, and gone out silently to meet me. Three hours after- 
wards, when all were running about in wild alarm, not 
knowing whither to go in search of me — not even missing 
Gregory, or heeding his absence, poor fellow — poor, poor 
fellow ! — Lassie came home, with my handkerchief tied 
round her neck. They knew and understood, and the 
whole strength of the farm was turned out to follow 
her, with wraps, and blankets, and brandy, and everything 
that could be thought of. I lay in chilly sleep, but still 
alive, beneath the rock that Lassie guided them to. I 
was covered over with my brother’s plaid, and his thick 
shepherd’s coat was carefully wrapped round my feet. He 
was in his shirt-sleeves — his arm thrown over me — a quiet 
smile (he had hardly ever smiled in life) upon his still, 
cold face. 


403 


The Half-brothers 

My father’s last words were, “ God forgive me my hard- 
ness of heart towards the fatherless child ! ” 

And what marked the depth of his feeling of repentance, 
perhaps more than all, considering the passionate love he 
bore my mother, was this : we found a paper of directions 
after his death, in which he desired that he might he at the 
foot of the grave, in which, by his desire, poor Gregory had 
been laid with oub motheb. 



MRS. LUMB’S HOUSE IN KNUTSFORD 










MR. HARRISON’S CONFESSIONS 


CHAPTER I 

The fire was burning gaily. My wife had just gone upstairs 
to put baby to bed. Charles sat opposite to me, looking 
very brown and handsome. It was pleasant enough that 
we should feel sure of spending some weeks under the same 
roof, a thing which we had never done since we were mere 
boys. I felt too lazy to talk, so I ate walnuts and looked 
into the fire. But Charles grew restless. 

“ Now that your wife is gone upstairs, Will, you must 
tell me what I’ve wanted to ask you ever since I saw her 
this morning. Tell me all about the wooing and winning. 
I want to have the receipt for getting such a charming little 
wife of my own. Your letters only gave the barest details. 
So set to, man, and tell me every particular.” 

“ If I tell you all, it will be a long story.” 

“ Never fear. If I get tired, I can go to sleep, and 
dream that I am back again, a lonely bachelor, in Ceylon ; 
and I can waken up when you have done, to know that I 
am under your roof. Dash away, man ! ‘ Once upon a 

time, a gallant young bachelor’ There’s a beginning 

for you ! ” 

“ Well, then : ‘ Once upon a time, a gallant young bachelor * 
was sorely puzzled where to settle, when he had completed 
his education as a surgeon — I must speak in the first person ; 
I cannot go on as a gallant young bachelor. I had just 
finished walking the hospitals when you went to Ceylon, 
and, if you remember, I wanted to go abroad like you, and 

405 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

thought of offering myself as a ship -surgeon ; but I found 
I should rather lose caste in my profession ; so I hesitated, 
and, while I was hesitating, I received a letter from my 
father’s cousin, Mr. Morgan — that old gentleman who used 
to write such long letters of good advice to my mother, and 
who tipped me a five-pound note when I agreed to be bound 
apprentice to Mr. Howard, instead of going to sea. Well, 
it seems the old gentleman had all along thought of taking 
me as his partner, if I turned out pretty well ; and, as he 
heard a good account of me from an old friend of his, who 
was a surgeon at Guy’s, he wrote to propose this arrange- 
ment : I was to have a third of the profits for five years ; 
after that, half ; and eventually I was to succeed to the 
whole. It was no bad offer for a penniless man like me, 
as Mr. Morgan had a capital country practice, and, though 
I did not know him personally, I had formed a pretty good 
idea of him, as an honourable, kind-hearted, fidgety, meddle- 
some old bachelor; and a very correct notion it was, as I 
found out in the very first half-hour of seeing him. I had 
had some idea that I was to live in his house, as he was a 
bachelor and a kind of family friend, and I think he was 
afraid that I should expect this arrangement ; for, when I 
walked up to his door, with the porter carrying my port- 
manteau, he met me on the steps, and while he held my 
hand and shook it, he said- to the porter, ‘Jerry, if you’ll 
wait a moment, Mr. Harrison will be ready to go with you 
to his lodgings, at Jocelyn’s, you know ; ’ and then, turning 
to me, he addressed his first words of welcome. I was a 
little inclined to think him inhospitable, but I got to under- 
stand him better afterwards. ‘ Jocelyn’s,’ said he, ‘ is the 
best place I have been able to hit upon in a hurry, and there 
is a good deal of fever about, which made me desirous that 
you should come this month — a low kind of typhoid, in the 
oldest part of the town. I think you’ll be comfortable there 
for a week or two. I have taken the liberty of desiring 
my housekeeper to send down one or two things which give 
the place a little more of a home aspect — an easy-chair, a 

406 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

beautiful case of preparations, and one or two little matters 
in the way of eatables ; but, if you’ll take my advice, I’ve 
a plan in my head which we will talk about to-morrow 
morning. At present, I don’t like to keep you standing out 
on the steps here ; so I’ll not detain you from your lodgings, 
where I rather think my housekeeper is gone to get tea 
ready for you.’ 

“ I thought I understood the old gentleman’s anxiety for 
his own health, which he put upon care for mine ; for he 
had on a kind of loose grey coat, and no hat on his head. 
But I wondered that he did not ask me indoors, instead 
of keeping me on the steps. I believe, after all, I made a 
mistake in supposing he was afraid of taking cold ; he was 
only afraid of being seen in dishabille. And for his apparent 
inhospitality, I had not been long in Duncombe before I 
understood the comfort of having one’s house considered 
as a castle into which no one might intrude, and saw good 
reason for the practice Mr. Morgan had established of coming 
to his door to speak to every one. It was only the effect of 
habit that made him receive me so. Before long, I had the 
free run of his house. 

“ There was every sign of kind attention and forethought 
on the part of some one, whom I could not doubt to be Mr. 
Morgan, in my lodgings. I was too lazy to do much that 
evening, and sat in the little bow- window which projected 
over Jocelyn’s shop, looking up and down the street. Dun- 
combe calls itself a town, but I should call it a village. 
Really, looking from Jocelyn’s, it is a very picturesque place. 
The houses are anything but regular ; they may be mean in 
their details ; but altogether they look well ; they have not 
that flat unrelieved front, which many towns of far more 
pretensions present. Here and there a bow-window — every 
now and then a gable, cutting up against the sky — occasion- 
ally a projecting upper storey— throws good effect of light 
and shadow along the street ; and they have a queer fashion 
of their own of colouring the whitewash of some of the houses 
with a sort of pink blotting-paper tinge, more like the stone 

407 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

of which Mayence is built than anything else. It may be 
very bad taste, but to my mind it gives a rich warmth to the 
colouring. Then, here and there a dwelling-house has a 
court in front, with a grass-plot on each side of the flagged 
walk, and a large tree or two — limes or horse-chestnuts — 
which send their great projecting upper branches over into 
the street, making round dry places of shelter on the pave- 
ment in the times of summer showers. 

“ While I was sitting in the bow- window, thinking of the 
contrast between this place and the lodgings in the heart of 
London, which I had left only twelve hours before — the 
window open here, and, although in the centre of the town, 
admitting only scents from the mignonette boxes on the sill, 

instead of the dust and smoke of Street — the only sound 

heard in this, the principal street, being the voices of mothers 
calling their playing children home to bed, and the eight 
o’clock bell of the old parish church bimbomming in remem- 
brance of the curfew : while I was sitting thus idly, the door 
opened, and the little maid- servant, dropping a courtesy, 
said — 

“ ‘ Please, sir, Mrs. Munton’s compliments, and she would 
be glad to know how you are after your journey.’ 

“There! was not that hearty and kind? Would even 
the dearest chum I had at Guy’s have thought of doing such 
a thing ? while Mrs. Munton, whose name I had never heard 
of before, was doubtless suffering anxiety till I could relieve 
her mind by sending back word that I was pretty well. 

“ ‘ My compliments to Mrs. Munton, and I am pretty 
well : much obliged to her.’ It was as well to say only 
‘ pretty well,’ for ‘ very well ’ would have destroyed the 
interest Mrs. Munton evidently felt in me. Good Mrs. 
Munton ! Kind Mrs. Munton ! Perhaps, also, young — 
handsome— rich — widowed Mrs. Munton ! I rubbed my 
hands with delight and amusement, and, resuming my post 
of observation, began to wonder at which house Mrs. 
Munton lived. 

“ Again the little tap, and the little maid-servant — 

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“ ‘ Please, sir, the Miss Tomkinsons’ compliments, and 
they would be glad to know how you feel yourself after 
your journey.’ 

“ I don’t know why, but the Miss Tomkinsons’ name had 
not such a halo about it as Mrs. Munton’s. Still it was very 
pretty in the Miss Tomkinsons to send and inquire. I only 
wished I did not feel so perfectly robust. I was almost 
ashamed that I could not send word I was quite exhausted 
by fatigue, and had fainted twice since my arrival. If I had 
but had a headache, at least ! I heaved a deep breath : my 
chest was in perfect order ; I had caught no cold ; so I 
answered again — • 

“ ‘ Much obliged to the Miss Tomkinsons ; I am not 
much fatigued ; tolerably well : my compliments.’ 

“ Little Sally could hardly have got downstairs, before 
she returned, bright and breathless — 

“ ‘ Mr. and Mrs. Bullock’s compliments, sir, and they 
hope you are pretty well after your journey.’ 

“ Who would have expected such kindness from such an 
unpromising name ? Mr. and Mrs. Bullock were less 
interesting, it is true, than their predecessors ; but I 
graciously replied — 

“ ‘ My compliments; a night’s rest will perfectly recruit me.’ 

“ The same message was presently brought up from one 
or two more unknown kind hearts. I really wished I were 
not so ruddy-looking, I was afraid I should disappoint the 
tender-hearted town when they saw what a hale young 
fellow I was. And I was almost ashamed of confessing to 
a great appetite for supper when Sally came up to inquire 
what I would have. Beefsteaks were so tempting; but 
perhaps I ought rather to have water-gruel, and go to bed. 
The beefsteak carried the day, however. I need not have 
felt such a gentle elation of spirits, as this mark of the town’s 
attention is paid to every one when they arrive after a journey. 
Many of the same people have sent to inquire after you — 
great, hulking, brown fellow as you are— only Sally spared 
you the infliction of devising interesting answers. 

409 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 


CHAPTER II 

“ The next morning Mr. Morgan came before I had finished 
breakfast. He was the most dapper little man I ever met. 
I see the affection with which people cling to the style of 
dress that was in vogue when they were beaux and belles, 
and received the most admiration. They are unwilling to 
believe that their youth and beauty are gone, and think that 
the prevailing mode is unbecoming. Mr. Morgan will inveigh 
by the hour together against frock-coats, for instance, and 
whiskers. He keeps his chin close shaven, wears a black 
dress-coat, and dark-grey pantaloons; and in his morning 
round to his town patients, he invariably wears the brightest 
and blackest of Hessian boots, with dangling silk tassels 
on each side. When he goes home, about ten o’clock, to 
prepare for his ride to see his country patients, he puts on 
the most dandy top-boots I ever saw, which he gets from 
some wonderful bootmaker a hundred miles off. His appear- 
ance is what one calls ‘ jemmy ’ ; there is no other word that 
will do for it. He was evidently a little discomfited when 
he saw me in my breakfast costume, with the habits which 
I brought with me from the fellows at Guy’s; my feet 
against the fireplace, my chair balanced on its hind legs 
(a habit of sitting which I afterwards discovered he par- 
ticularly abhorred); slippers on my feet (which, also, he 
considered a most ungentlemanly piece of untidiness ‘ out 
of a bedroom ’) ; in short, from what I afterwards learned, 
every prejudice he had was outraged by my appearance on 
this first visit of his. I put my book down, and sprang up 
to receive him. He stood, hat and cane in hand. 

“ * I came to inquire if it would be convenient for you to 
accompany me on my morning’s round, and to be intro- 
duced to a few of our friends.’ I quite detected the little 
tone of coldness, induced by his disappointment at my 

410 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

appearance, though he never imagined that it was in any 
way perceptible. ‘ I will be ready directly, sir,’ said I ; and 
bolted into my bedroom, only too happy to escape his 
scrutinising eye. 

“ When I returned, I was made aware, by sundry in- 
describable little coughs and hesitating noises, that my dress 
did not satisfy him. I stood ready, hat and gloves in hand ; 
but still he did not offer to set off on our round. I grew 
very red and hot. At length he said — 

“ * Excuse me, my dear young friend, but may I ask if 
you have no other coat besides that — “cut-away,” I believe 
you call them ? We are rather sticklers for propriety, I 
believe, in Duncombe ; and much depends on a first impres- 
sion. Let it be professional, my dear sir. Black is the garb 
of our profession. Forgive my speaking so plainly; but I 
consider myself in loco parentis.* 

“ He was so kind, so bland, and, in truth, so friendly, 
that I felt it would be most childish to take offence ; but I 
had a little resentment in my heart at this way of being 
treated. However, I mumbled, ‘ Oh, certainly, sir, if you 
wish it ; ’ and returned once more to change my coat — my 
poor cut-away. 

“ ‘ Those coats, sir, give a man rather too much of a 
sporting appearance, not quite befitting the learned profes- 
sions ; more as if you came down here to hunt than to be 
the Galen or Hippocrates of the neighbourhood.’ He smiled 
graciously, so I smothered a sigh ; for, to tell you the truth, 
I had rather anticipated — and, in fact, had boasted at Guy’s 
of — the runs I hoped to have with the hounds ; for Duncombe 
was in a famous hunting district. But all these ideas were 
quite dispersed when Mr. Morgan led me to the inn-yard, 
where there was a horse-dealer on his way to a neighbouring 
fair, and ‘ strongly advised me ’ — which in our relative cir- 
cumstances was equivalent to an injunction — to purchase a 
little, useful, fast-trotting, brown cob, instead of a fine showy 
horse, ‘ who would take any fence I put him to,’ as the horse- 
dealer assured me. Mr. Morgan was evidently pleased when I 

411 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

bowed to his decision, and gave up all hopes of an occasional 
hunt. 

“ He opened out a great deal more after this purchase. 
He told me his plan of establishing me in a house of my 
own, which looked more respectable, not to say professional, 
than being in lodgings ; and then he went on to say that he 
had lately lost a friend, a brother surgeon in a neighbouring 
town, who had left a widow with a small income, who would 
be very glad to live with me, and act as mistress to my 
establishment ; thus lessening the expense. 

“ * She is a lady-like woman,’ said Mr. Morgan, ‘ to judge 
from the little I have seen of her ; about forty- five or so ; 
and may really be of some help to you in the little etiquettes 
of our profession — the slight delicate attentions which every 
man has to learn, if he wishes to get on in life. This is 
Mrs. Munton’s, sir,’ said he, stopping short at a very unro- 
mantic-looking green door, with a brass knocker, 

“ I had no time to say, ‘ Who is Mrs. Munton ? ’ before 
we had heard Mrs. Munton was at home, and were following 
the tidy elderly servant up the narrow carpeted stairs into 
the drawing-room. Mrs. Munton was the widow of a former 
vicar, upwards of sixty, rather deaf ; but, like all the deaf 
people I have ever seen, very fond of talking ; perhaps 
because she then knew the subject, which passed out of her 
grasp when another began to speak. She was ill of a 
chronic complaint, which often incapacitated her from going 
out ; and the kind people of the town were in the habit of 
coming to see her and sit with her, and of bringing her the 
newest, freshest, tit bits of news; so that her room was the 
centre of the gossip of Duncombe — not of scandal, mind ; 
for I make a distinction between gossip and scandal. Now 
you can fancy the discrepancy between the ideal and the 
real Mrs. Munton. Instead of any foolish notion of a beau- 
tiful blooming widow, tenderly anxious about the health of 
the stranger, I saw a homely, talkative, elderly person, with 
a keen observant eye, and marks of suffering on her face ; 
plain in manner and dress, but still unmistakably a lady. 

412 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

She talked to Mr. Morgan, but she looked at me ; and I saw 
that nothing I did escaped her notice. Mr. Morgan annoyed 
me by his anxiety to show me off; but he was kindly 
anxious to bring out every circumstance to my credit in Mrs. 
Munton’s hearing, knowing well that the town-crier had not 
more opportunities to publish all about me than she had. 

“ ‘ What was that remark you repeated to me of Sir 
Astley Cooper’s ? ’ asked he. It had been the most trivial 
speech in the world that I had named as we walked along, 
and I felt ashamed of having to repeat it : but it answered 
Mr. Morgan’s purpose, and before night all the town had 
heard that I was a favourite pupil of Sir Astley’s (I had 
never seen him but twice in my life) ; and Mr. Morgan was 
afraid that as soon as he knew my full value I should be 
retained by Sir Astley to assist him in his duties as surgeon 
to the Eoyal Family. Every little circumstance was pressed 
into the conversation which could add to my importance. 

“ ‘ As I once heard Sir Eobert Peel remark to Mr. 
Harrison, the father of our young friend here — The moons 
in August are remarkably full and bright.’ — If you remem- 
ber, Charles, my father was always proud of having sold a 
pair of gloves to Sir Eobert, when he was staying at the 
Grange, near Biddicombe, and I suppose good Mr. Morgan 
had paid his only visit to my father at the time ; but Mrs. 
Munton evidently looked at me with double respect after 
this incidental remark, which I was amused to meet with, a 
few months afterwards, disguised in the statement that my 
father was an intimate friend of the Premier’s, and had, in 
fact, been the adviser of most of the measures taken by him 
in public life. I sat by, half indignant and half amused. 
Mr. Morgan looked so complacently pleased at the whole 
effect of the conversation, that I did not care to mar it by 
explanations; and, indeed, I had little idea at the time how 
small sayings were the seeds of great events in the town of 
Duncombe. When we left Mrs. Munton’s, he was in a 
blandly communicative mood. 

“ ‘ You will find it a curious statistical fact, but five-sixths 
4i3 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

of our householders of a certain rank in Duncombe are 
women. We have widows and old maids in rich abundance. 
In fact, my dear sir, I believe that you and I are almost 
the only gentlemen in the place — Mr. Bullock, of course, 
excepted. By gentlemen, I mean professional men. It 
behoves us to remember, sir, that so many of the female sex 
rely upon us for the kindness and protection which every 
man who is worthy of the name is always so happy to 
render.’ 

“ Miss Tomkinson, on whom we next called, did not 
strike me as remarkably requiring protection from any man. 
She was a tall, gaunt, masculine- looking woman, with an air 
of defiance about her, naturally ; this, however, she softened 
and mitigated, as far as she was able, in favour of Mr. 
Morgan. He, it seemed to me, stood a little in awe of the 
lady, who was very brusque and plain-spoken, and evidently 
piqued herself on her decision of character and sincerity of 
speech. 

“ ‘ So this is the Mr. Harrison we have heard so much of 
from you, Mr. Morgan ? I must say, from what I had heard, 
that I had expected something a little more — hum — hum ! 
But he’s young yet ; he’s young. We have been all antici- 
pating an Apollo, Mr. Harrison, from Mr. Morgan’s descrip- 
tion, and an iEsculapius combined in one ; or, perhaps I 
might confine myself to saying Apollo, as he, I believe, was 
the god of medicine ! ’ 

“ How could Mr. Morgan have described me without 
seeing me ? I asked myself. 

“ Miss Tomkinson put on her spectacles, and adjusted 
them on her Roman nose. Suddenly relaxing from her 
severity of inspection, she said to Mr. Morgan — ‘ But you 
must see Caroline. I had nearly forgotten it ; she is busy 
with the girls, but I will send for her. She had a bad head- 
ache yesterday, and looked very pale ; it made me very 
uncomfortable.’ 

“ She rang the bell, and desired the servant to fetch Miss 
Caroline. 


414 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ Miss Caroline was the younger sister — younger by 
twenty years ; and so considered as a child by Miss Tomkin- 
son, who was fifty-five, at the very least. If she was con- 
sidered as a child, she was also petted and caressed, and 
cared for as a child ; for she had been left as a baby to the 
charge of her elder sister ; and when the father died, and they 
had to set up a school, Miss Tomkinson took upon herself 
every difficult arrangement, and denied herself every pleasure, 
and made every sacrifice in order that ‘ Carry ’ might not 
feel the change in their circumstances. My wife tells me she 
once knew the sisters purchase a piece of silk, enough, with 
management, to have made two gowns ; but Carry wished for 
flounces, or some such fal-lals ; and, without a word, Miss 
Tomkinson gave up her gown to have the whole made up as 
Carry wished, into one handsome one ; and wore an old shabby 
affair herself as cheerfully as if it were Genoa velvet. That 
tells the sort of relationship between the sisters as well as 
anything, and I consider myself very good to name it thus 
early ; for it was long before I found out Miss Tomkinson’s 
real goodness, and we had a great quarrel first. Miss 
Caroline looked very delicate and die-away when she came 
in ; she was as soft and sentimental as Miss Tomkinson was 
hard and masculine ; and had a way of saying, * Oh, sister, 
how can you ? * at Miss Tomkinson’s startling speeches, 
which I never liked — especially as it was accompanied by a 
sort of protesting look at the company present, as if she 
wished to have it understood that she was shocked at her 
sister’s outre manners. Now, that was not faithful between 
sisters. A remonstrance in private might have done good — 
though, for my own part, I have grown to like Miss Tomkin- 
son’s speeches and ways ; but I don’t like the way some people 
have of separating themselves from what may be unpopular 
in their relations. I know I spoke rather shortly to Miss 
Caroline when she asked me whether I could bear the change 
from ‘ the great metropolis ’ to a little country village. In 
the first place, why could not she call it ‘ London,’ or ‘ town,’ 
and have done with it ? And, in the next place, why should 

4i5 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

she not love the place that was her home well enough to 
fancy that every one would like it when they came to know 
it as well as she did ? 

“ I was conscious I was rather abrupt in my conversa- 
tion with her, and I saw that Mr. Morgan was watching me, 
though he pretended to be listening to Miss Tomkinson’s 
whispered account of her sister’s symptoms. But when we 
were once more in the street, he began, ‘ My dear young 
friend ’ 

“ 1 winced ; for all the morning I had noticed that when 
he was going to give a little unpalatable advice, he always 
began with * My dear young friend.’ He had done so about 
the horse. 

“ ‘ My dear young friend, there are one or two hints I 
should like to give you about your manner. The great Sir 
Everard Home used to say, “ A general practitioner should 
either have a very good manner, or a very bad one.” Now, in 
the latter case, he must be possessed of talents and acquire- 
ments sufficient to ensure his being sought after, whatever 
his manner might be. But the rudeness will give notoriety 
to these qualifications. Abernethy is a case in point. I 
rather, myself, question the taste of bad manners. I, there- 
fore, have studied to acquire an attentive, anxious politeness, 
which combines ease and grace with a tender regard and 
interest. I am not aware whether I have succeeded (few 
men do) in coming up to my ideal ; but I recommend you to 
strive after this manner, peculiarly befitting our profession. 
Identify yourself with your patients, my dear sir. You have 
sympathy in your good heart, I am sure, to really feel pain 
when listening to their account of their sufferings, and it 
soothes them to see the expression of this feeling in your 
manner. It is, in fact, sir, manners that make the man in 
our profession. I don’t set myself up as an example— far 

from it ; but * This is Mr. Hutton’s, our vicar ; one of 

the servants is indisposed, and I shall be glad of the oppor- 
tunity of introducing you. We can resume our conversation 
at another time.’ 


416 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ I had not been aware that we had been holding a con- 
versation, in which, I believe, the assistance of two persons 
is required. Why had not Mr. Hutton sent to ask after my 
health the evening before, according to the custom of the 
place ? I felt rather offended. 


CHAPTER III 

“ The vicarage was on the north side of the street, at the 
end opening towards the hills. It was a long low house, 
receding behind its neighbours; a court was between the 
door and the street, with a flag -walk and an old stone cistern 
on the right-hand side of the door ; Solomon’s seal growing 
under the windows. Some one was watching from behind 
the window-curtain ; for the door opened, as if by magic, as 
soon as we reached it ; and we entered a low room, which 
served as hall, and was matted all over, with deep old- 
fashioned window-seats, and Dutch tiles in the fireplace; 
altogether it was very cool and refreshing, after the hot sun 
in the white and red street. 

“ ‘ Bessie is not so well, Mr. Morgan,’ said the sweet 
little girl of eleven or so, who had opened the door. ‘ Sophy 
wanted to send for you ; but papa said he was sure you 
would come soon this morning, and we were to remember 
that there were other sick people wanting you.’ 

“ ‘ Here’s Mr. Morgan, Sophy,’ said she, opening the 
door into an inner room, to which we descended by a step, 
as I remember well ; for I was nearly falling down it, I was 
so caught by the picture within. It was like a picture — at 
least, seen through the door-frame. A sort of mixture of 
crimson and sea-green in the room, and a sunny garden 
beyond ; a very low casement window, open to the amber 
air ; clusters of white roses peeping in ; and Sophy sitting on 
a cushion on the ground, the light coming from above on 

417 2 E 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

her head, and a little sturdy round-eyed brother kneeling 
by her, to whom she was teaching the alphabet. It was a 
mighty relief to him when we came in, as I could see ; and 
I am much mistaken if he was easily caught again to say 
his lesson, when he was once sent off to find papa. Sophy 
rose quietly ; and of course we were just introduced, and that 
was all, before she took Mr. Morgan upstairs to see her sick 
servant. I was left to myself in the room. It looked so 
like a home that it at once made me know the full charm of 
the word. There were books and work about, and tokens 
of employment ; there was a child’s plaything on the floor, 
and against the sea-green walls there hung a likeness or two, 
done in water-colours ; one, I was sure, was that of Sophy’s 
mother. The chairs and sofa were covered with chintz, the 
same as the curtains — a little pretty red rose on a white 
ground. I don’t know where the crimson came from, but 
I am sure there was crimson somewhere ; perhaps in the 
carpet. There was a glass door besides the window, and 
you went up a step into the garden. This was, first, a grass 
plot, just under the windows, and, beyond that, straight 
gravel walks, with box-borders and narrow flower-beds on 
each side, most brilliant and gay at the end of August, as it 
w^as then ; and behind the flower-borders were fruit-trees 
trained over woodwork, so as to shut out the beds of kitchen- 
garden within. 

“ While I was looking round, a gentleman came in, who, 
I was sure, was the Vicar. It was rather awkward, for I 
had to account for my presence there. 

“‘I came with Mr. Morgan ; my name is Harrison,’ said 
I, bowing. I could see he was not much enlightened by this 
explanation, but we sat down and talked about the time of 
year, or some such matter, till Sophy and Mr. Morgan came 
back. Then I saw Mr. Morgan to advantage. With a man 
whom he respected, as he did the Vicar, he lost the prim, 
artificial manner he had in general, and was calm and 
dignified ; but not so dignified as the Vicar. I never saw 
any one like him. He was very quiet and reserved, almost 

418 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

absent at times ; his personal appearance was not striking ; 
but be was altogether a man yon would talk to with your 
hat off whenever you met him. It was his character that 
produced this effect — character that he never thought about, 
but that appeared in every word, and look, and motion. 

“ ‘ Sophy,’ said he, ‘ Mr. Morgan looks very warm ; could 
you not gather a few jargonelle pears off the south wall ? I 
fancy there are some ripe there. Our jargonelle pears are 
remarkably early this year.’ 

“ Sophy went into the sunny garden, and I saw her take 
a rake and tilt at the pears, which were above her reach, 
apparently. The parlour had become chilly (I found out 
afterwards it had a flag floor, which accounts for its coldness), 
and I thought I should like to go into the warm sun. I said I 
would go and help the young lady ; and, without waiting for 
an answer, I went into the warm scented garden, where the 
bees were rifling the flowers, and making a continual busy 
sound. I think Sophy had begun to despair of getting the 
fruit, and was glad of my assistance. I thought I was very 
senseless to have knocked them down so soon, when I found 
we were to go in as soon as they were gathered. I should 
have liked to have walked round the garden, but Sophy 
walked straight off with the pears, and I could do nothing 
but follow her. She took up her needlework while we ate 
them : they were very soon finished, and, when the Vicar had 
ended his conversation with Mr. Morgan about some poor 
people, we rose up to come away. I was thankful that Mr. 
Morgan had said so little about me. I could not have en- 
dured that he should have introduced Sir Astley Cooper or 
Sir Robert Peel at the vicarage ; nor yet could I have brooked 
much mention of my ‘great opportunities for acquiring a 
thorough knowledge of my profession,’ which I had heard 
him describe to Miss Tomkinson, while her sister was talking 
to me. Luckily, however, he spared me all this at the Vicar’s. 
When we left, it was time to mount our horses and go the 
country rounds, and I was glad of it. 


419 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 


CHAPTER IV 

“ By-and-by the inhabitants of Duncombe began to have 
parties in my honour. Mr. Morgan told me it was on my 
account, or I don’t think I should have found it out. But 
he was pleased at every fresh invitation, and rubbed his 
hands, and chuckled, as if it was a compliment to himself, as 
in truth it was. 

“ Meanwhile, the arrangement with Mrs. Rose had been 
brought to a conclusion. She was to bring her furniture, 
and place it in a house, of which I was to pay the rent. 
She was to be the mistress, and, in return, she was not to 
pay anything for her board. Mr. Morgan took the house, 
and delighted in advising and settling all my affairs. I was 
partly indolent, and partly amused, and was altogether 
passive. The house he took for me was near his own : it 
had two sitting-rooms downstairs, opening into each other 
by folding-doors, which were, however, kept shut in general. 
The back room was my consulting-room (‘ the library,’ he 
advised me to call it), and he gave me a skull to put on the 
top of my bookcase, in which the medical books were all 
ranged on the conspicuous shelves ; while Miss Austen, 
Dickens, and Thackeray were, by Mr. Morgan himself, 
skilfully placed in a careless way, upside down or with their 
backs turned to the wall. The front parlour was to be the 
dining-room, and the room above was furnished with Mrs. 
Rose’s drawing-room chairs and table, though I found she 
preferred sitting downstairs in the dining-room close to the 
window, where, between every stitch, she could look up and 
see what was going on in the street. I felt rather queer to 
be the master of this house, filled with another person’s 
furniture, before I had even seen the lady whose property 
it was. 

Presently she arrived. Mr. Morgan met her at the inn 
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Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

where the coach stopped, and accompanied her to my house. 
I could see them out of the drawing-room window, the little 
gentleman stepping daintily along, flourishing his cane, and 
evidently talking away. She was a little taller than he was, 
and in deep widow’s mourning; such veils and falls, and 
capes and cloaks, that she looked like a black crape haycock. 
When we were introduced, she put up her thick veil, and 
looked around and sighed. 

“ ‘ Your appearance and circumstances, Mr. Harrison, 
remind me forcibly of the time when I was married to my 
dear husband, now at rest. He was then, like you, com- 
mencing practice as a surgeon. For twenty years I sym- 
pathised with him, and assisted him by every means in my 
power, even to making up pills when the young man was out. 
May we live together in like harmony for an equal length of 
time ! May the regard between us be equally sincere, 
although, instead of being conjugal, it is to be maternal and 
filial!’ 

“ I am sure she had been concocting this speech in the 
coach, for she afterwards told me she was the only passenger. 
When she had ended, I felt as if I ought to have had a glass 
of wine in my hand to drink, after the manner of toasts. 
And yet I doubt if I should have done it heartily, for I did 
not hope to live with her for twenty years ; it had rather a 
dreary sound. However, I only bowed and kept my thoughts 
to myself. I asked Mr. Morgan, while Mrs. Eose was up- 
stairs taking off her things, to stay to tea; to which he 
agreed, and kept rubbing his hands with satisfaction, saying — 

“ * Very fine woman, sir ; very fine woman ! And what 
a manner ! How she will receive patients, who may wish 
to leave a message during your absence. Such a flow of 
words to be sure ! ’ 

“ Mr. Morgan could not stay long after tea, as there were 
one or two cases to be seen. I would willingly have gone, 
and had my hat on, indeed, for the purpose, when he said it 
would not be respectful, ‘ not the thing,’ to leave Mrs. Bose 
the first evening of her arrival. 

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Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ ‘ Tender deference to the sex — to a widow in the 
first months of her loneliness — requires a little considera- 
tion, my dear sir. I will leave that case at Miss Tom- 
kinson’s for you ; you will perhaps call early to-morrow 
morning. Miss Tomkinson is rather particular, and is apt 
to speak plainly if she does not think herself properly 
attended to.’ 

“ I had often noticed that he shuffled off the visits to Miss 
Tomkinson’s on me, and I suspect he was a little afraid of 
the lady. 

“ It was rather a long evening with Mrs. Rose. She had 
nothing to do, thinking it civil, I suppose, to stop in the 
parlour, and not go upstairs and unpack. I begged I might 
be no restraint upon her if she wished to do so ; but (rather 
to my disappointment) she smiled in a measured, subdued 
way, and said it would be a pleasure to her to become better 
acquainted with me. She went upstairs once, and my heart 
misgave me when I saw her come down with a clean folded 
pocket-handkerchief. Oh, my prophetic soul ! — she was no 
sooner seated, than she began to give me an account of her 
late husband’s illness, and symptoms, and death. It was a 
very common case, but she evidently seemed to think it had 
been peculiar. She had just a smattering of medical know- 
ledge, and used the technical terms so very mal-apropos that 
I could hardly keep from smiling ; but I would not have done 
it for the world, she was evidently in such deep and sincere 
distress. At last she said — 

“ ‘ I have the “ dognoses ” of my dear husband’s com- 
plaint in my desk, Mr. Harrison, if you would like to draw 
up the case for the Lancet. I. think he would have felt 
gratified, poor fellow, if he had been told such a compli- 
ment would be paid to his remains, and that his case should 
appear in those distinguished columns.’ 

“ It was rather awkward ; for the case was of the very 
commonest, as I said before. However, I had not been 
even this short time in practice without having learnt a few 
of those noises which do not compromise one, and yet may 

422 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

bear a very significant construction if the listener chooses to 
exert a little imagination. 

“ Before the end of the evening, we were such friends 
that she brought me down the late Mr. Rose’s picture to look 
at. She told me she could not bear herself to gaze upon the 
beloved features ) but that, if I would look upon the miniature, 
she would avert her face. I offered to take it into my own 
hands, but she seemed wounded at the proposal, and said 
she never, never could trust such a treasure out of her own 
possession ; so she turned her head very much over her left 
shoulder, while I examined the likeness held by her extended 
right arm. 

“ The late Mr. Rose must have been rather a good- 
looking jolly man ; and the artist had given him such a broad 
smile, and such a twinkle about the eyes, that it really was 
hard to help smiling back at him. However, I restrained 
myself. 

“ At first Mrs. Rose objected to accepting any of the 
invitations which were sent her to accompany me to the 
tea-parties in the town. She was so good and simple that 
I was sure she had no other reason than the one which she 
alleged — the short time that had elapsed since her husband’s 
death ; or else, now that I had had some experience of the 
entertainments which she declined so pertinaciously, I might 
have suspected that she was glad of the excuse. I used 
sometimes to wish that I was a widow. I came home tired 
from a hard day’s riding, and, if I had but felt sure that Mr. 
Morgan would not come in, I should certainly have put on 
my slippers and my loose morning coat, and have indulged 
in a cigar in the garden. It seemed a cruel sacrifice to 
society to dress myself in tight boots, and a stiff coat, and 
go to a five-o’clock tea. But Mr. Morgan read me such 
lectures upon the necessity of cultivating the goodwill of 
the people among whom I was settled, and seemed so sorry, 
and almost hurt, when I once complained of the dulness of 
these parties, that I felt I could not be so selfish as to 
decline more than one out of three. Mr. Morgan, if he 

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Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

found that I had an invitation for the evening, would often 
take the longer round, and the more distant visits. I 
suspected him at first of the design, which I confess I often 
entertained, of shirking the parties ; but I soon found out 
he was really making a sacrifice of his inclinations for what 
he considered to be my advantage. 


CHAPTEB V 

“ There was one invitation which seemed to promise a good 
deal of pleasure. Mr. Bullock (who is the attorney of Dun- 
combe) was married a second time to a lady from a large 
provincial town ; she wished to lead the fashion — a thing 
very easy to do, for every one was willing to follow her. So, 
instead of giving a tea-party in my honour, she proposed a 
picnic to some old hall in the neighbourhood ; and really the 
arrangements sounded tempting enough. Every patient we 
had seemed full of the subject — both those who were invited 
and those who were not. There was a moat round the house, 
with a boat on it ; and there was a gallery in the hall, from 
which music sounded delightfully. The family to whom the 
place belonged were abroad, and lived at a newer and grander 
mansion when they were at home ; there were only a farmer 
and his wife in the old hall, and they were to have the 
charge of the preparations. The little kind-hearted town 
was delighted when the sun shone bright on the October 
morning of our picnic; the shopkeepers and cottagers all 
looked pleased as they saw the cavalcade gathering at 
Mr. Bullock’s door. We were somewhere about twenty in 
number; a ‘silent few,’ she called us; but I thought we 
were quite enough. There were the Miss Tomkinsons, and 
two of their young ladies — one of them belonged to a 
‘ county family,’ Mrs. Bullock told me in a whisper ; then 
came Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Bullock, and a tribe of little 

424 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

children, the offspring of the present wife. Miss Bullock 
was only a step-daughter. Mrs. Munton had accepted the 
invitation to join our party, which was rather unexpected 
by the host and hostess, I imagine, from little remarks that 
I overheard ; but they made her very welcome. Miss 
Horsman (a maiden lady who had been on a visit from 
home till last week) was another. And last, there were 
the Vicar and his children. These, with Mr. Morgan and 
myself, made up the party. I was very much pleased to 
see something more of the Vicar’s family. He had come 
in occasionally to the evening parties, it is true ; and spoken 
kindly to us all ; but it was not his habit to stay very long 
at them. And his daughter was, he said, too young to visit. 
She had had the charge of her little sisters and brother 
since her mother’s death, which took up a good deal of her 
time, and she was glad of the evenings to pursue her own 
studies. But to-day the case was different ; and Sophy, 
and Helen, and Lizzie, and even little Walter, were all 
there, standing at Mrs. Bullock’s door ; for we none of us 
could be patient enough to sit still in the parlour with Mrs. 
Munton and the elder ones, quietly waiting for the two 
chaises and the spring-cart, which were to have been there 
by two o’clock, and now it was nearly a quarter past. 
‘ Shameful ! the brightness of the day would be gone.’ The 
sympathetic shopkeepers, standing at their respective doors 
with their hands in their pockets, had, one and all, their 
heads turned in the direction from which the carriages (as 
Mrs. Bullock called them) were to come. There was a 
rumble along the paved street ; and the shopkeepers turned 
and smiled, and bowed their heads congratulatingly to us ; 
all the mothers and all the little children of the place stood 
clustering round the door to see us set off. I had my horse 
waiting ; and, meanwhile, I assisted people into their vehicles. 
One sees a good deal of management on such occasions. 
Mrs. Munton was handed first into one of the chaises ; then 
there was a little hanging back, for most of the young 
people wished to go in the cart — I don’t know why. Miss 

425 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

Horsman, however, came forward, and, as she was known 
to be the intimate friend of Mrs. Mnnton, so far it was satis- 
factory. But who was to be third — bodkin with two old 
ladies, who liked the windows shut ? I saw Sophy speaking 
to Helen ; and then she came forward and offered to be the 
third. The two old ladies looked pleased and glad (as every 
one did near Sophy) ; so that chaise-full was arranged. 
Just as it was going off, however, the servant from the 
vicarage came running with a note for her master. When 
he had read it, he went to the chaise door, and I suppose 
told Sophy, what I afterwards heard him say to Mrs. Bullock, 
that the clergyman of a neighbouring parish was ill, and 
unable to read the funeral service for one of his parishioners, 
who was to be buried that afternoon. The Vicar was, of 
course, obliged to go, and said he should not return home 
that night. It seemed a relief to some, I perceived, to be 
without the little restraint of his dignified presence. Mr. 
Morgan came up just at the moment, having ridden hard 
all the morning to be in time to join our party ; so we were 
resigned, on the whole, to the Vicar’s absence. His own 
family regretted him the most, I noticed, and I liked them 
all the better for it. I believe that I came next in being 
sorry for his departure ; but I respected and admired him, 
and felt always the better for having been in his company. 
Miss Tomkinson, Mrs. Bullock, and the ‘ county ’ young 
lady, were in the next chaise. I think the last would rather 
have been in the cart with the younger and merrier set, but 
I imagine that was considered infra dig. The remainder of 
the party were to ride and tie ; and a most riotous laughing 
set they were. Mr. Morgan and I were on horseback ; at 
least I led my horse, with little Walter riding on him ; his 
fat, sturdy legs standing stiff out on each side of my cob’s 
broad back. He was a little darling, and chattered all the 
way, his sister Sophy being the heroine of all his stories. 
I found he owed this day’s excursion entirely to her begging 
papa to let him come ; nurse was strongly against it — ‘ cross 
old nurse ! ’ he called her once, and then said, ‘ No, not 

426 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

cross ; kind nurse ; Sophy tells Walter not to say cross 
nurse.’ I never saw so young a child so brave. The horse 
shied at a log of wood. Walter looked very red, and grasped 
the mane, but sat upright like a little man, and never spoke 
all the time the horse was dancing. When it was over he 
looked at me, and smiled — 

“ ‘ You would not let me be hurt, Mr. Harrison, would 
you ? ’ He was the most winning little fellow I ever saw. 

“ There were frequent cries to me from the cart, ‘ Oh, 
Mr. Harrison ! do get us that branch of blackberries ; you 
can reach it with your whip handle.’ * Oh, Mr. Harrison ! 
there were such splendid nuts on the other side of that 
hedge ; would you just turn back for them ? ’ Miss Caro- 
line Tomkinson was once or twice rather faint with the 
motion of the cart, and asked me for my smelling-bottle, as 
she had forgotten hers. I was amused at the idea of my 
carrying such articles about with me. Then she thought 
she should like to walk, and got out, and came on my side 
of the road ; but I found little Walter the pleasanter com- 
panion, and soon set the horse off into a trot, with which 
pace her tender constitution could not keep up. 

“ The road to the old hall was along a sandy lane, with 
high hedge-banks; the wych-elms almost met overhead. 
‘ Shocking farming ! ’ Mr. Bullock called out ; and so it 
might be, but it was very pleasant and picturesque-looking. 
The trees were gorgeous, in their orange and crimson hues, 
varied by great dark green holly-bushes, glistening in the 
autumn sun. I should have thought the colours too vivid, if I 
had seen them in a picture, especially when we wound up the 
brow, after crossing the little bridge over the brook — (what 
laughing and screaming there was as the cart splashed 
through the sparkling water !) — and I caught the purple hills 
beyond. We could see the old hall, too, from that point, 
with its warm rich woods billowing up behind, and the blue 
waters of the moat lying still under the sunlight. 

“ Laughing and talking is very hungry work, and there 
was a universal petition for dinner when we arrived at the 

427 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

lawn before the hall, where it had been arranged that we 
were to dine. I saw Miss Carry take Miss Tomkinson aside, 
and whisper to her ; and presently the elder sister came up 
to me, where I was busy, rather apart, making a seat of hay, 
which I had fetched from the farmer’s loft for my little friend 
Walter, who, I had noticed, was rather hoarse, and for 
whom I was afraid of a seat on the grass, dry as it appeared 
to be. 

“ ‘ Mr. Harrison, Caroline tells me she has been feeling 
very faint, and she is afraid of a return of one of her attacks. 
She says she has more confidence in your medical powers 
than in Mr. Morgan’s. I should not be sincere if I did not 
say that I differ from her ; but, as it is so, may I beg you to 
keep an eye upon her ? I tell her she had better not have 
come if she did not feel well ; but, poor girl, she had set her 
heart upon this day’s pleasure. I have offered to go home 
with her ; but she says, if she can only feel sure you are at 
hand, she would rather stay.’ 

“ Of course I bowed, and promised all due attendance on 
Miss Caroline ; and in the meantime, until she did require 
my services, I thought I might as well go and help the 
Vicar’s daughter, who looked so fresh and pretty in her 
white muslin dress, here, there, and everywhere, now in the 
sunshine, now in the green shade, helping every one to be 
comfortable, and thinking of every one but herself. 

“ Presently, Mr. Morgan came up. 

“ ‘ Miss Caroline does not feel quite well. I have pro- 
mised your services to her sister.’ 

“ ‘ So have I, sir. But Miss Sophy cannot carry this 
heavy basket.’ 

“ I did not mean her to have heard this excuse ; but she 
caught it up and said — 

“ * Oh, yes, I can ! I can take the things out one by one. 
Go to poor Miss Caroline, pray, Mr. Harrison.’ 

“ I went ; but very unwillingly, I must say. When I had 
once seated myself by her, I think she must have felt better. 
It was, probably, only a nervous fear, which was relieved 

428 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

when she knew she had assistance near at hand; for she 
made a capital dinner. I thought she would never end her 
modest requests for ‘ just a little more pigeon-pie, or a merry- 
thought of chicken.’ Such a hearty meal would, I hope, 
effectually revive her ; and so it did ; for she told me she 
thought she could manage to walk round the garden, and see 
the old peacock yews, if I would kindly give her my arm. 
It was very provoking ; I had so set my heart upon being 
with the Yicar’s children. I advised Miss Caroline strongly 
to lie down a little, and rest before tea, on the sofa in the 
farmer’s kitchen ; you cannot think how persuasively I 
begged her to take care of herself. At last she consented, 
thanking me for my tender interest ; she should never forget 
my kind attention to her. She little knew what was in my 
mind at the time. However, she was safely consigned to 
the farmer’s wife, and I was rushing out in search of a white 
gown and a waving figure, when I encountered Mrs. 
Bullock at the door of the hall. She was a fine, fierce- 
looking woman. I thought she had appeared a little dis- 
pleased at my (unwilling) attentions to Miss Caroline at 
dinner-time ; but now, seeing me alone, she was all smiles. 

“ * Oh, Mr. Harrison, all alone ! How is that ? What 
are the young ladies about to allow such churlishness? 
And, by the way, I have left a young lady who will be very 
glad of your assistance, I am sure — my daughter, Jemima 
(her step-daughter, she meant). Mr. Bullock is so particular, 
and so tender a father, that he would be frightened to death 
at the idea of her going into, the boat on the moat unless 
she was with some one who could swim. He is gone to 
discuss the new wheel-plough with the farmer (you know 
agriculture is his hobby, although law, horrid law, is his 
business). But the poor girl is pining on the bank, longing 
for my permission to join the others, which I dare not give 
unless you will kindly accompany her, and promise, if any 
accident happens, to preserve her safe.’ 

“ Oh, Sophy, why was no one anxious about you? 


429 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 


CHAPTER VI 

“ Miss Bullock was standing by the water-side, looking 
wistfully, as I thought, at the water party; the sound of 
whose merry laughter came pleasantly enough from the 
boat, which lay off (for, indeed, no one knew how to row, 
and she was of a clumsy flat-bottomed build) about a hundred 
yards, ‘weather-bound,’ as they shouted out, among the 
long stalks of the water-lilies. 

“ Miss Bullock did not look up till I came close to her ; 
and then, when I told her my errand, she lifted up her 
great, heavy, sad eyes, and looked at me for a moment. 
It struck me, at the time, that she expected to find some 
expression on my face which was not there, and that its 
absence was a relief to her. She was a very pale, unhappy- 
looking girl, but very quiet, and, if not agreeable in manner, 
at any rate not forward or offensive. I called to the party 
in the boat, and they came slowly enough through the large, 
cool, green lily-leaves towards us. When they got near, we 
saw there was no room for us, and Miss Bullock said she 
would rather stay in the meadow and saunter about, if I 
would go into the boat ; and I am certain from the look 
on her countenance that she spoke the truth; but Miss 
Horsman called out, in a sharp voice, while she smiled in 
a very disagreeable knowing way — 

“ ‘ Oh, mamma will be displeased if you don’t come in, 
Miss Bullock, after all her trouble in making such a nice 
arrangement.’ 

“ At this speech the poor girl hesitated, and at last, in 
an undecided way, as if she was not sure whether she was 
doing right, she took Sophy’s place in the boat. Helen and 
Lizzie landed with their sister, so that there was plenty of 
room for Miss Tomkinson, Miss Horsman, and all the little 
Bullocks; and the three vicarage girls went off strolling 
along the meadow side, and playing with Walter, who was 

430 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

in a high state of excitement. The sun was getting low, 
but the declining light was beautiful upon the water ; and, 
to add to the charm of the time, Sophy and her sisters, 
standing on the green lawn in front of the hall, struck up 
the little German canon, which I had never heard before — 

“ * 0 wie wohl ist mir am Abend,’ &c. 

At last we were summoned to tug the boat to the landing- 
steps on the lawn, tea and a blazing wood fire being ready 
for us in the hall. I was offering my arm to Miss Horsman, 
as she was a little lame, when she said again, in her peculiar 
disagreeable way, ‘ Had you not better take Miss Bullock, 
Mr. Harrison ? It will be more satisfactory.’ 

“ I helped Miss Horsman up the steps, however, and 
then she repeated her advice; so, remembering that Miss 
Bullock was in fact the daughter of my entertainers, I went 
to her ; but, though she accepted my arm, I could perceive 
that she was sorry that I had offered it. 

“ The hall was lighted by the glorious wood fire in the 
wide old grate ; the daylight was dying away in the west ; 
and the large windows admitted but little of what was left, 
through their small leaded frames, with coats of arms em- 
blazoned upon them. The farmer’s wife had set out a 
great long table, which was piled with good things ; and a 
huge black kettle sang on the glowing fire, which sent a 
cheerful warmth through the room as it crackled and blazed. 
Mr. Morgan (who I found had been taking a little round in 
the neighbourhood among his patients) was there, smiling 
and rubbing his hands as usual. Mr. Bullock was holding 
a conversation with the farmer at the garden-door on the 
nature of different manures, in which it struck me that, if 
Mr. Bullock had the fine names and the theories on his 
side, the farmer had all the practical knowledge and the ex- 
perience, and I know which I would have trusted. I think 
Mr. Bullock rather liked to talk about Liebig in my hearing ; 
it sounded well, and was knowing. Mrs. Bullock was not 
particularly placid in her mood. In the first place, I wanted 

43i 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

to sit by the Vicar’s daughter, and Miss Caroline as decidedly 
wanted to sit on my other side, being afraid of her fainting 
fits, I imagine. But Mrs. Bullock called me to a place near 
her daughter. Now, I thought I had done enough civility 
to a girl who was evidently annoyed rather than pleased by 
my attentions, and I pretended to be busy stooping under 
the table for Miss Caroline’s gloves, which were missing; 
but it was of no avail; Mrs. Bullock’s fine severe eyes 
were awaiting my reappearance, and she summoned me 
again. 

“‘I am keeping this place on my right hand for you, 
Mr. Harrison. Jemima, sit still ! ’ 

“ I went up to the post of honour and tried to* busy 
myself with pouring out coffee to hide my chagrin ; but, 
on my forgetting to empty the water put in (‘ to warm the 
cups,’ Mrs. Bullock said), and omitting to add any sugar, 
the lady told me she would dispense with my services, and 
turn me over to my neighbour on the other side. 

“ ‘ Talking to the younger lady was, no doubt, more Mr. 
Harrison’s vocation than assisting the elder one.’ I dare 
say it was only the manner that made the words seem 
offensive. Miss Horsman sat opposite to me, smiling away. 
Miss Bullock did not speak, but seemed more depressed 
than ever. At length, Miss Horsman and Mrs. Bullock got 
to a war of inuendoes, which were completely unintelligible 
to me, and I was very much displeased with my situation ; 
while, at the bottom of the table, Mr. Morgan and Mr. 
Bullock were making the young ones laugh most heartily. 
Part of the joke was Mr. Morgan insisting upon making tea 
at the end; and Sophy and Helen were busy contriving 
every possible mistake for him. I thought honour was a 
very good thing, but merriment a better. Here was I in the 
place of distinction, hearing nothing but cross words. At 
last the time came for us to go home. As the evening was 
damp, the seats in the chaises were the best and most to be 
desired. And now Sophy offered to go in the cart; only 
she seemed anxious, and so was I, that Walter should be 

43 2 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

secured from the effects of the white wreaths of fog rolling 
up from the valley ; but the little violent, affectionate fellow 
would not be separated from Sophy. She made a nest for 
him on her knee in one corner of the cart, and covered him 
with her own shawl ; and I hoped that he would take no 
harm. Miss Tomkinson, Mr. Bullock, and some of the 
young ones walked ; but I seemed chained to the windows 
of the chaise, for Miss Caroline begged me not to leave her, 
as she was dreadfully afraid of robbers ; and Mrs. Bullock 
implored me to see that the man did not overturn them in 
the bad roads, as he had certainly had too much to drink. 

“ I became so irritable before I reached home, that I 
thought it was the most disagreeable day of pleasure I had 
ever had, and could hardly bear to answer Mrs. Bose’s 
never-ending questions. She told me, however, that from 
my account the day was so charming that she thought she 
should relax in the rigour of her seclusion, and mingle a 
little more in the society of which I gave so tempting a 
description. She really thought her dear Mr. Bose would 
have wished it ; and his will should be law to her after his 
death, as it had ever been during his life. In compliance, 
therefore, with his wishes, she would even do a little violence 
to her own feelings. 

“ She was very good and kind ; not merely attentive to 
everything which she thought could conduce to my comfort, 
but willing to take any trouble in providing the broths and 
nourishing food which I often found it convenient to order, 
under the name of kitchen-physic, for my poorer patients ; 
and I really did not see the use of her shutting herself up, 
in mere compliance with an etiquette, when she began to 
wish to mix in the little quiet society of Duncombe. Accord- 
ingly I urged her to begin to visit, and, even when applied 
to as to what I imagined the late Mr. Bose’s wishes on 
that subject would have been, answered for that worthy 
gentleman, and assured his widow that I was convinced he 
would have regretted deeply her giving way to immoderate 
grief, and would have been rather grateful than otherwise 

433 2 F 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

at seeing her endeavour to divert her thoughts by a few 
quiet visits. She cheered up, and said, ‘ As I really thought 
so, she would sacrifice her own inclinations, and accept the 
very next invitation that came.* 


CHAPTER VII 

“ I was roused from my sleep in the middle of the night by 
a messenger from the vicarage. Little Walter had got the 
croup, and Mr. Morgan had been sent for into the country. 
I dressed myself hastily, and went through the quiet little 
street. There was a light burning upstairs at the vicarage. 
It was in the nursery. The servant, who opened the door 
the instant I knocked, was crying sadly, and could hardly 
answer my inquiries as I went upstairs, two steps at a time, 
to see my little favourite. 

“ The nursery was a great large room. At the farther 
end it was lighted by a common candle, which left the other 
end, where the door was, in shade ; so I suppose the nurse 
did not see me come in, for she was speaking very crossly. 

“ ‘ Miss Sophy ! ’ said she, ‘ I told you over and over again 
it was not fit for him to go, with the hoarseness that he had ; 
and you would take him. It will break your papa’s heart, 
I know ; but it’s none of my doing.’ 

“ Whatever Sophy felt, she did not speak in answer to 
this. She was on her knees by the warm bath, in which 
the little fellow was struggling to get his breath, with a 
look of terror on his face that I have often noticed in young 
children when smitten by a sudden and violent illness. It 
seems as if they recognised something infinite and invisible, 
at whose bidding the pain and the anguish come, from which 
no love can shield them. It is a very heart-rending look to 
observe, because it comes on the faces of those who are too 
young to receive comfort from the words of faith, or the 

434 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

promises of religion. Walter had his arms tight round 
Sophy’s neck, as if she, hitherto his paradise-angel, could 
save him from the grave shadow of Death. Yes ! of Death ! 
I knelt down by him on the other side, and examined him. 
The very robustness of his little frame gave violence to the 
disease, which is always one of the most fearful by which 
children of his age can be attacked. 

“ ‘ Don’t tremble, Watty,’ said Sophy, in a soothing tone ; 
* it’s Mr. Harrison, darling, who let you ride on his horse.’ 
I could detect the quivering in the voice, which she tried to 
make so calm and soft to quiet the little fellow’s fears. We 
took him out of the bath, and I went for leeches. While 
I was away, Mr. Morgan came. He loved the vicarage 
children as if he were their uncle ; but he stood still and 
aghast at the sight of Walter — so lately bright and strong — 
and now hurrying along to the awful change — to the silent 
mysterious land, where, tended and cared for as he had been 
on earth, he must go — alone. The little fellow ! the darling ! 

“We applied the leeches to his throat. He resisted at 
first ; but Sophy, God bless her ! put the agony of her grief 
on one side, and thought only of him, and began to sing the 
little songs he loved. We were all still. The gardener had 
gone to fetch the Vicar ; but he was twelve miles off, and 
we doubted if he would come in time. I don’t know if they 
had any hope ; but, the first moment Mr. Morgan’s eyes met 
mine, I saw that he, like me, had none. The ticking of the 
house clock sounded through the dark quiet house. Walter 
was sleeping now, with the black leeches yet hanging to his 
fair, white throat. Still Sophy went on singing little lullabies, 
which she had sung under far different and happier circum- 
stances. I remember one verse, because it struck me at 
the time as strangely applicable. 

“ ‘ Sleep, baby, sleep ! 

Thy rest shall angels keep ; 

While on the grass the lamb shall feed, 

And never suffer want or need. 

Sleep, baby, sleep-* 

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Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

The tears were in Mr. Morgan’s eyes. I do not think either 
he or I could have spoken in our natural tones ; but the 
brave girl went on clear though low. She stopped at last, 
and looked up. 

“ ‘ He is better, is he not, Mr. Morgan ? ’ 

“‘No, my dear. He is — ahem ’—he could not speak all 
at once. Then he said — ‘ My dear ! he will be better soon. 
Think of your mamma, my dear Miss Sophy. She will be 
very thankful to have one of her darlings safe with her, where 
she is.’ 

“ Still she did not cry. But she bent her head down on 
the little face, and kissed it long and tenderly. 

“ * I will go for Helen and Lizzie. They will be sorry 
not to see him again.’ She rose up and went for them. 
Poor girls, they came in, in their dressing-gowns, with eyes 
dilated with sudden emotion, pale with terror, stealing softly 
along, as if sound could disturb him. Sophy comforted 
them by gentle caresses. It was over soon. 

“ Mr. Morgan was fairly crying like a child. But he 
thought it necessary to apologise to me, for what I honoured 
him for. ‘ I am a little overdone by yesterday’s work, sir. 
I have had one or two bad nights, and they rather upset me. 
When I was your age I was as strong and manly as any 
one, and would have scorned to shed tears.’ 

“ Sophy came up to where we stood. 

“ ‘ Mr. Morgan ! I am so sorry for papa. How shall I 
tell him ? ’ She was struggling against her own grief for 
her father’s sake. Mr. Morgan offered to await his coming 
home ; and she seemed thankful for the proposal. I, new 
friend, almost a stranger, might stay no longer. The street 
was as quiet as ever'; not a shadow was changed; for it was 
not yet four o’clock. But during the night a soul had 
departed. 

“ From all I could see, and all I could learn, the Vicar 
and his daughter strove which should comfort the other the 
most. Each thought of the other’s grief — each prayed for the 
other rather than for themselves. We saw them walking 

436 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

out, countrywards ; and we heard of them in the cottages of 
the poor. But it was some time before I happened to meet 
either of them again. And then I felt, from something 
indescribable in their manner towards me, that I was one 
of the 

“ ‘ Peculiar people, whom Death had made dear.’ 

That one day at the old hall had done this. I was, perhaps, 
the last person who had given the poor little fellow any 
unusual pleasure. Poor Walter ! I wish I could have done 
more to make his short life happy ! 


CHAPTEB VIII 

“ Thebe was a little lull, out of respect to the Vicar’s grief, 
in the visiting. It gave time to Mrs. Bose to soften down 
the anguish of her weeds. 

“ At Christmas, Miss Tomkinson sent out invitations for 
a party. Miss Caroline had once or twice apologised to me 
because such an event had not taken place before; but, as 
she said, ‘ the avocations of their daily life prevented their 
having such little reunions except in the vacations.’ And, 
sure enough, as soon as the holidays began, came the civil 
little note — 

“ ‘ The Misses Tomkinson request the pleasure of Mrs. 
Bose’s and Mr. Harrison’s company at tea, on the evening of 
Monday, the 23rd inst. Tea at five o’clock.’ 

“ Mrs. Bose’s spirit roused, like a war-horse at the sound 
of the trumpet, at this. She was not of a repining disposi- 
tion, but I do think she believed the party-giving population 
of Duncombe had given up inviting her, as soon as she had 
determined to relent, and accept the invitations, in compliance 
with the late Mr. Bose’s wishes. 

“ Such snippings of white love -ribbon as I found every- 
where, making the carpet untidy ! One day, too, unluckily, 

437 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

a small box was brought to me by mistake. I did not look 
at the direction, for I never doubted it was some hyoscyamus 
which I was expecting from London ; so I tore it open, and 
saw inside a piece of paper, with ‘ No more grey hair,’ in 
large letters, upon it. I folded it up in a hurry, and sealed it 
afresh, and gave it to Mrs. Eose; but I could not refrain 
from asking her, soon after, if she could recommend me 
anything to keep my hair from turning grey, adding that I 
thought prevention was better than cure. I think she made 
out the impression of my seal on the paper after that ; for I 
learned that she had been crying, and that she talked about 
there being no sympathy left in the world for her since Mr. 
Bose’s death ; and that she counted the days until she could 
rejoin him in the better world. I think she counted the days 
to Miss Tomkinson’s party, too ; she talked so much about it. 

“ The covers were taken off Miss Tomkinson’s chairs, 
and curtains, and sofas; and a great jar full of artificial 
flowers was placed in the centre of the table, which, as Miss 
Caroline told me, was all her doing, as she doted on the 
beautiful and artistic in life. Miss Tomkinson stood, erect 
as a grenadier, close to the door, receiving her friends, and 
heartily shaking them by the hands as they entered; she 
said she was truly glad to see them. And so she really was. 

“We had just finished tea, and Miss Caroline had brought 
out a little pack of conversation cards — sheaves of slips of 
cardboard, with intellectual or sentimental questions on one 
set, and equally intellectual and sentimental answers on the 
other ; and, as the answers were fit to any and all the ques- 
tions, you may think they were a characterless and ‘ wersh ’ 
set of things. I had just been asked by Miss Caroline — 

“ ‘ Can you tell what those dearest to you think of you at this 
'present time ? ’ and had answered — 

“ ‘ How can you expect me to reveal such a secret to the present 
company ! ’ when the servant announced that a gentleman, a 
friend of mine, wished to speak to me downstairs. 

“ ‘ Oh, show him up, Martha ; show him up ! ’ said Miss 
Tomkinson, in her hospitality. 

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Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ ‘ Any friend of our friend is welcome,’ said Miss Caroline, 
in an insinuating tone. 

“ I jumped up, however, thinking it might be some one 
on business ; but I was so penned in by the spider-legged 
tables, stuck out on every side, that I could not make the 
baste I wished ; and, before I could prevent it, Martha bad 
shown up Jack Marshland, who was on his road home for a 
day or two at Christmas. 

“ He came up in a hearty way, bowing to Miss Tomkin- 
son, and explaining that he had found himself in my neigh- 
bourhood, and had come over to pass a night with me, and 
that my servant had directed him where I was. 

“ His voice, loud at all times, sounded like Stentor’s in 
that little room, where we all spoke in a kind of purring 
way. He had no swell in his tones; they were forte 
from the beginning. At first it seemed like the days 
of my youth come back again, to hear full manly speaking ; 
I felt proud of my friend, as he thanked Miss Tom- 
kinson for her kindness in asking him to stay the evening. 
By-and-by he came up to me, and I dare say he thought 
he had lowered his voice, for he looked as if speaking 
confidentially, while in fact the whole room might have 
heard him. 

“ ‘ Frank, my boy, when shall we have dinner at this good 
old lady’s ? I’m deuced hungry.’ 

“ ‘ Dinner ! Why, we had had tea an hour ago.’ While 
he yet spoke, Martha came in with a little tray, on which 
was a single cup of coffee and three slices of wafer bread- 
and-butter. His dismay, and his evident submission to the 
decrees of Fate, tickled me so much, that I thought he should 
have a further taste of the life I led from month’s end to 
month’s end, and I gave up my plan of taking him home at 
once, and enjoyed the anticipation of the hearty laugh we 
should have together at the end of the evening. I was 
famously punished for my determination. 

“ * Shall we continue our game ? ’ asked Miss Caroline, 
who had never relinquished her sheaf of questions. 

439 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“We went on questioning and answering, with little gain 
of information to either party. 

“ ‘ No such thing as heavy betting in this game, eh, 
Frank?’ asked Jack, who had been watching us. ‘You 
don’t lose ten pounds at a sitting, I guess, as you used to do 
at Short’s. Playing for love, I suppose you call it ? ’ 

“ Miss Caroline simpered, and looked down. Jack was 
not thinking of her. He was thinking of the days we had 
had ‘ at the Mermaid.’ Suddenly he said, ‘ Where were you 
this day last year, Frank ? ’ 

“ ‘ I don’t remember ! ’ said I. 

“ ‘ Then I’ll tell you. It’s the 23rd — the day you were 
taken up for knocking down the fellow in Long Acre, and 
that I had to bail you out ready for Christmas-day. You are 
in more agreeable quarters to-night.’ 

“ He did not intend this reminiscence to be heard, but 
was not in the least put out when Miss Tomkinson, with a 
face of dire surprise, asked — 

“ ‘ Mr. Harrison taken up, sir ? 

“ ‘ Oh, yes, ma’am ; and you see it was so common an 
affair with him to be locked up that he can’t remember the 
dates of his different imprisonments.’ 

“He laughed heartily; and so should I have d6ne, but that 
I saw the impression it made. The thing was, in fact, simple 
enough, and capable of easy explanation. I had been made 
angry by seeing a great hulking fellow, out of mere wanton- 
ness, break the crutch from under a cripple ; and I struck 
the man more violently than I intended, and down he went, 
yelling out for the police, and I had to go before the 
magistrate to be released. I disdained giving this explana- 
tion at the time. It was no business of theirs what I had 
been doing a year ago; but still Jack might have held his 
tongue. However, that unruly member of his was set 
a-going, and he told me afterwards he was resolved to let the 
old ladies into a little of life ; and accordingly he remembered 
every practical joke we had ever had, and talked and laughed, 
and roared again. I tried to converse with Miss Caroline — 

440 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

Mrs. Munton — any one; but Jack was the hero of the 
evening, and every one was listening to him. 

“ ‘ Then he has never sent any hoaxing letters since he 
came here, has he ? Good boy ! He has turned over a new 
leaf. He was the deepest dog at that I ever met with. Such 
anonymous letters as he used to send ! Do you remember 
that to Mrs. Walbrook, eh, Frank ? That was too bad ! ’ (the 
wretch was laughing all the time). ‘ No ; I won’t tell 
about it — don’t be afraid. Such a shameful hoax ! ’ (laughing 
again). 

“ ‘ Pray do tell,’ I called out ; for he made it seem far 
worse than it was. 

“ ‘ Oh no, no ; you’ve established a better character — I 
would not for the world nip your budding efforts. We’ll 
bury the past in oblivion.’ 

“ I tried to tell my neighbours the story to which he 
alluded ; but they were attracted by the merriment of Jack’s 
manner, 'and did not care to hear the plain matter of fact. 

“ Then came a pause ; Jack was talking almost quietly to 
Miss Horsman. Suddenly he called across the room — 
‘ How many times have you been out with the hounds ? 
The hedges were blind very late this year, but you must 
have had some good mild days since.’ 

“ ‘ I have never been out,’ said I shortly. 

“ ‘ Never ! — whew ! Why, I thought that was the 

great attraction to Duncombe.’ 

“Now was not he provoking ! He would condole with 
me, and fix the subject in the minds of every one present. 

“ The supper trays were brought in, and there was a 
shuffling of situations. He and I were close together again. 

“ ‘ I say, Frank, what will you lay me that I don’t clear 
that tray before people are ready for their second helping ? 
I’m as hungry as a hound.’ 

“ ‘ You shall have a round of beef and a raw leg of 
mutton when you get home. Only do behave yourself 
here.’ 

“ ‘ Well, for your sake ; but keep me away from those 

44 1 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

trays, or I’ll not answer for myself. “ Hould me, or 111 
fight,” as the Irishman said. I’ll go and talk to that little 
old lady in blue, and sit with my back to those ghosts of 
eatables.’ . 

“He sat down by Miss Caroline, who would not have 
liked his description of her ; and began an earnest, tolerably 
quiet conversation. I tried to be as agreeable as I could, to 
do away with the impression he had given of me; but I 
found that every one drew up a little stiffly at my approach, 
and did not encourage me to make any remarks. 

“ In the middle of my attempts, I heard Miss Caroline 
beg Jack to take a glass of wine, and I saw him help himself 
to what appeared to be port; but in an instant he set it 
down from his lips, exclaiming, ‘ Vinegar, by Jove ! ’ He 
made the most horribly wry face : and Miss Tomkinson 
came up in a severe hurry to investigate the affair. It turned 
out it was some black-currant wine, on which she particu- 
larly piqued herself ; I drank two glasses of it to ingratiate 
myself with her, and can testify to its sourness. I don’t 
think she noticed my exertions, she was so much engrossed 
in listening to Jack’s excuses for his mal-api'opos observation. 
He told her, with the gravest face, that he had been a 
teetotaller so long that he had but a confused recollection 
of the distinction between wine and vinegar, particularly 
eschewing the latter, because it had been twice fermented; 
and .that he had imagined Miss Caroline had asked him to 
take toast-and-water, or he should never have touched the 
decanter. 


CHAPTER IX 

“ As we were walking home, Jack said, ‘ Lord, Frank ! I’ve 
had such fun with the little lady in blue. I told her you 
wrote to me every Saturday, telling me the events of the 
week. She took it all in.’ He stopped to laugh; for he 

442 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

bubbled and chuckled so that he could not laugh and walk. 
‘ And I told her you were deeply in love ’ (another laugh) ; 
‘ and that I could not get you to tell me the name of the 
lady, but that she had light brown hair — in short, I drew 
from life, and gave her an exact description of herself ; and 
that I was most anxious to see her, and implore her to be 
merciful to you, for that you were a most timid, faint-hearted 
fellow with women.’ He laughed till I thought he would 
have fallen down. * I begged her, if she could guess who 
it was from my description — I’ll answer for it she did — I 
took care of that; for I said you described a mole on the 
left cheek, in the most poetical way, saying Venus had 
pinched it out of envy at seeing any one more lovely — oh, 
hold me up, or I shall fall — laughing and hunger make me 
so weak ; — well, I say, I begged her, if she knew who your 
fair one could be, to implore her to save you. I said I knew 
one of your lungs had gone after a former unfortunate love- 
affair, and that I could not answer for the other if the lady 
here were cruel. She spoke of a respirator ; but I told her 
that might do very well for the odd lung; but would it 
minister to a heart diseased ? I really did talk fine. I have 
found out the secret of eloquence — it’s believing what you’ve 
got to say ; and I worked myself well up with fancying you 
married to the little lady in blue.’ 

“ I got to laughing at last, angry as I had been ; his 
impudence was irresistible. Mrs. Eose had come home in 
the sedan, and gone to bed ; and he and I sat up over the 
round of beef and brandy-and-water till two o’clock in the 
morning. 

“ He told me I had got quite into the professional way of 
mousing about a room, and mewing and purring according 
as my patients were ill or well. He mimicked me, and made 
me laugh at myself. He left early the next morning. 

“ Mr. Morgan came at his usual hour ; he and Marshland 
would never have agreed, and I should have been uncom- 
fortable to see two friends of mine disliking and despising 
each other. 


443 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ Mr. Morgan was ruffled ; but with his deferential 
manner to women, he smoothed himself down before Mrs. 
Rose —regretted that he had not been able to come to Miss 
Tomkinson’s the evening before, and consequently had not 
seen her in the society she was so well calculated to adorn. 
But when we were by ourselves, he said — 

“ ‘ I was sent for to Mrs. Munton’s this morning — the 
old spasms. May I ask what is this story she tells me about 
— about prison, in fact ? I trust, sir, she has made some 

little mistake, and that you never were that it is an 

unfounded report.’ He could not get it out — ‘ that you 
were in Newgate for three months ! ’ I burst out laughing ; 
the story had grown like a mushroom indeed. Mr. Morgan 
looked grave. I told him the truth. Still he looked grave. 
‘ I’ve no doubt, sir, that you acted rightly ; but it has an 
awkward sound. I imagined from your hilarity just now 
that there was no foundation whatever for the story. Un- 
fortunately, there is.’ 

“ ‘ I was only a night at the police-station. I would go 
there again for the same cause, sir.’ 

“ ‘ Very fine spirit, sir — quite like Don Quixote ; but don’t 
you see you might as well have been to the hulks at once ? ’ 

“ ‘ No, sir ; I don’t.’ 

“ * Take my word, before long, the story will have grown 
to that. However, we won’t anticipate evil. Mens conscia 
recti , you remember, is the great thing. The part I regret is, 
that it may require some short time to overcome a little 
prejudice which the story may excite against you. How- 
ever, we won’t dwell on it. Mens conscia recti ! Don’t 
think about it, sir.’ 

“ It was clear he was thinking a good deal about it. 


444 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 


CHAPTER X 

“ Two or three days before this time, I had had an invitation 
from the Bullocks to dine with them on Christmas-day. 
Mrs. Rose was going to spend the week with friends in the 
town where she formerly lived ; and I had been pleased at 
the notion of being received into a family, and of being a 
little with Mr. Bullock, who struck me as a bluff, good- 
hearted fellow. 

“ But this Tuesday before Christmas-day, there came an 
invitation from the Vicar to dine there ; there were to be 
only their own family and Mr. Morgan. ‘ Only their own 
family.’ It was getting to be all the world to me. I was in 
a passion with myself for having been so ready to accept Mr. 
Bullock’s invitation — coarse and ungen tlemanly as he was ; 
with his wife’s airs of pretension and Miss Bullock’s 
stupidity. I turned it over in my mind. No ! I could not 
have a bad headache, which should prevent me going to the 
place I did not care for, and yet leave me at liberty to go 
where I wished. All I could do was to join the vicarage 
girls after church, and walk by their side in a long country 
ramble. They were quiet; not sad, exactly; but it was 
evident that the thought of Walter was in their minds on 
this day. We went through a copse where there were a 
good number of evergreens planted as covers for game. The 
snow was on the ground ; but the sky was clear and bright, 
and the sun glittered on the smooth holly-leaves. Lizzie 
asked me to gather her some of the very bright red berries, 
and she was beginning a sentence with — 

“ ‘ Do you remember ’ when Helen said * Hush,' and 

looked towards Sophy, who was walking a little apart, and 
crying softly to herself. There was evidently some connec- 
tion between Walter and the holly-berries, for Lizzie threw 
them away at once when she saw Sophy’s tears. Soon we 
came to a stile which led to an open breezy common, 

445 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

* 

half-covered with gorse. I helped the little girls over it, and 
set them to run down the slope; but I took Sophy’s arm 
in mine, and, though I could not speak, I think she knew 
how I was feeling for her. I could hardly bear to bid her 
good-bye at the vicarage gate ; it seemed as if I ought to go 
in and spend the day with her. 


CHAPTER XI 

“ I vented my ill-humour in being late for the Bullocks’ 
dinner. There were one or two clerks, towards whom Mr. 
Bullock was patronising and pressing. Mrs. Bullock was 
decked out in extraordinary finery. Miss Bullock looked 
plainer than ever ; but she had on some old gown or other, 
I think, for I heard Mrs. Bullock tell her she was always 
making a figure of herself. I began to-day to suspect that 
the mother would not be sorry if I took a fancy to the step- 
daughter. I was again placed near her at dinner, and, when 
the little ones came in to dessert, I was made to notice how 
fond of children she was — and, indeed, when one of them 
nestled to her, her face did brighten ; but, the moment she 
caught this loud-whispered remark, the gloom came back 
again, with something even of anger in her look ; and she 
was quite sullen and obstinate when urged to sing in the 
drawing-room. Mrs. Bullock turned to me — 

“ ‘ Some young ladies won’t sing unless they are asked 
by gentlemen.’ She spoke very crossly. ‘ If you ask Jemima, 
she will probably sing. To oblige me, it is evident she will 
not.’ 

“ I thought the singing, when we got it, would probably 
be a great bore ; however, I did as I was bid, and went with 
my request to the young lady, who was sitting a little 
apart. She looked up at me with eyes full of tears, and 
said, in a decided tone (which, if J had not seen her eyes, 

446 


Mr. Harrison s Confessions 

I should have said was as cross as her mamma’s), ‘ No, sir, 
I will not.’ She got up, and left the room. I expected to 
hear Mrs. Bullock abuse her for her obstinacy. Instead of 
that, she began to tell me of the money that had been spent 
on her education ; of what each separate accomplishment 
had cost. ‘ She was timid,’ she said, ‘ but very musical. 
Wherever her future home might be, there would be no 
want of music. She went on praising her till I hated her. 
If they thought I was going to marry that great lubberly 
girl, they were mistaken. Mr. Bullock and the clerks came 
up. He brought out Liebig, and called me to him. 

“ * I can understand a good deal of this agricultural 
chemistry,’ said he, ‘ and have put it in practice — without 
much success, hitherto, I confess. But these unconnected 
letters puzzle me a little. I suppose they have some 
meaning, or else I should say it was mere book-making to 
put them in.* 

“ * I think they give the page a very ragged appearance,’ 
said Mrs. Bullock, who had joined us. ‘ I inherit a little of 
my late father’s taste for books, and must say I like to see 
a good type, a broad margin, and an elegant binding. My 
father despised variety; how he would have held up his 
hands aghast at the cheap literature of these times ! He 
did not require many books, but he would have twenty 
editions of those that he had ; and he paid more for binding 
than he did for the books themselves. But elegance was 
everything with him. He would not have admitted your 
Liebig, Mr. Bullock ; neither the nature of the subject, nor 
the common type, nor the common way in which your book 
is got up, would have suited him.’ 

“ ‘ Go and make tea, my dear, and leave Mr. Harrison 
and me to talk over a few of these manures.’ 

“We settled to it; I explained the meaning of the 
symbols, and the doctrine of chemical equivalents. At last 
he said, ‘ Doctor ! you’re giving me too strong a dose of it 
at one time. Let’s have a small quantity taken “ hodie ; ” 
that’s professional, as Mr. Morgan would call it. Come in 

447 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

and call, when you have leisure, and give me a lesson in my 
alphabet. Of all you’ve been telling me I can only re- 
member that C means carbon and 0 oxygen ; and I see one 
must know the meaning of all these confounded letters 
before one can do much good with Liebig.’ 

“ * We dine at three,’ said Mrs. Bullock. * There will 
always be a knife and fork for Mr. Harrison. Bullock ! 
don’t confine your invitation to the evening ! ’ 

“ ‘ Why, you see, I’ve a nap always after dinner ; so I 
could not be learning chemistry then.’ 

“ 1 Don’t be so selfish, Mr. B. Think of the pleasure 
Jemima and I shall have in Mr. Harrison’s society.’ 

“ I put a stop to the discussion by saying I would come 
in in the evenings occasionally, and give Mr. Bullock a 
lesson, but that my professional duties occupied me in- 
variably until that time. 

lt I liked Mr. Bullock. He was simple, and shrewd ; and 
to be with a man was a relief, after all the feminine society 
I went through every day. 


CHAPTEB Xn 

“ The next morning I met Miss Horsman. 

“ ‘ So you dined at Mr. Bullock’s yesterday, Mr. Harrison ? 
Quite a family party, I hear. They are quite charmed with 
you, and your knowledge of chemistry. Mr. Bullock told 
me so, in Hodgson’s shop, just now. Miss Bullock is a 
nice girl, eh, Mr. Harrison ? ’ She looked sharply at me. 
Of course, whatever I thought, I could do nothing but assent. 
‘ A n i° e little fortune, too — three thousand pounds, Consols, 
from her own mother.’ 

“ What did I care ? She might have three millions for 
me. I had begun to think a good deal about money, though, 
but not in connection with her. I had been doing up our 

448 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

books ready to send out our Christmas bills, and had been 
wondering how far the Vicar would consider three hundred 
a year, with a prospect of increase, would justify me in 
thinking of Sophy. Think of her I could not help; and, 
the more I thought of how good, and sweet, and pretty she 
was, the more I felt that she ought to have far more than 
I could offer. Besides, my father was a shopkeeper, and 
I saw the Vicar had a sort of respect for family. I deter- 
mined to try and be very attentive to my profession. I was 
as civil as could be to every one ; and wore the nap off the 
brim of my hat by taking it off so often. 

“ I had my eyes open to every glimpse of Sophy. I am 
overstocked with gloves now that I bought at that time, by 
way of making errands into the shops where I saw her black 
gown. I bought pounds upon pounds of arrowroot, till I 
was tired of the eternal arrowroot puddings Mrs. Rose gave 
me. I asked her if she could not make bread of it, but she 
seemed to think that would be expensive ; so I took to soap 
as a safe purchase. I believe soap improves by keeping. 


CHAPTER XIII 

“ The more I knew of Mrs. Rose, the better I liked her. 
She was sweet, and kind, and motherly, and we never had 
any rubs. I hurt her once or twice, I think, by cutting her 
short in her long stories about Mr. Rose. But I found out 
that when she had plenty to do she did not think of him 
quite so much; so I expressed a wish for Corazza shirts, 
and, in the puzzle of devising how they were to be cut out, 
she forgot Mr. Rose for some time. I was still more pleased 
by her way about some legacy her elder brother left her. 
I don’t know the amount, but it was something handsome, 
and she might have set up housekeeping for herself; but, 
instead, she told Mr. Morgan (who repeated it to me), that 

449 2 G 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

she should continue with me, as she had quite an elder 
sister’s interest in me. 

“ The ‘ county young lady,’ Miss Tyrrell, returned to Miss 
Tomkinson’s after the holidays. She had an enlargement 
of the tonsils, which required to be frequently touched with 
caustic, so I often called to see her. Miss Caroline always 
received me, and kept me talking in her washed-out style, 
after I had seen my patient. One day she told me she 
thought she had a weakness about the heart, and would be 
glad if I would bring my stethoscope the next time, which 
I accordingly did ! and, while I was on my knees listening 
to the pulsations, one of the young ladies came in. She 
said — 

“ ‘ Oh dear! I never! I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ and 
scuttled out. There was not much the matter with Miss 
Caroline’s heart : a little feeble in action or so, a mere 
matter of weakness and general languor. When I went 
down I saw two or three of the girls peeping out of the 
half-closed schoolroom door, but they shut it immediately, 
and I heard them laughing. The next time I called, Miss 
Tomkinson was sitting in state to receive me. 

“ ‘ Miss Tyrrell’s throat does not seem to make much 
progress. Do you understand the case, Mr. Harrison, or 
should we have further advice. I think Mr. Morgan would 
probably know more about it.’ 

“ I assured her it was the simplest thing in the world ; 
that it always implied a little torpor in the constitution, and 
that we preferred working through the system, which of 
course was a slow process ; and that the medicine the young 
lady was taking (iodide of iron) was sure to be successful, 
although the progress would not be rapid. She bent her 
head, and said, ‘ It might be so ; but she confessed she had 
more confidence in medicines which had some effect.’ 

“ She seemed to expect me to tell her something ; but 
I had nothing to say, and accordingly I bade good-bye. 
Somehow, Miss Tomkinson always managed to make me 
feel very small, by a succession of snubbings ; and, whenever 

45 ° 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

I left her I had always to comfort myself under her contra- 
dictions by saying to myself, * Her saying it is so does not 
make it so.’ Or I invented good retorts which I might have 
made to her brusque speeches, if I had but thought of them 
at the right time. But it was provoking that I had not had 
the presence of mind to recollect them just when they were 
wanted. 


CHAPTER XIV 

“On the whole, things went on smoothly. Mr. Holden’s 
legacy came in just about this time ; and I felt quite rich. 
Five hundred pounds would furnish the house, I thought, 
when Mrs. Rose left and Sophy came. I was delighted, 
too, to imagine that Sophy perceived the difference of my 
manner to her from what it was to any one else, and that 
she was embarrassed and shy in consequence, but not 
displeased with me for it. All was so flourishing that I 
went about on wings instead of feet. We were very busy, 
without having anxious cares. My legacy was paid into 
Mr. Bullock’s hands, who united a little banking business 
to his profession of law. In return for his advice about 
investments (which I never meant to take, having a more 
charming, if less profitable, mode in my head), I went pretty 
frequently to teach him his agricultural chemistry. I was so 
happy in Sophy’s blushes that I was universally benevolent, 
and desirous of giving pleasure to every one. I went, at 
Mrs. Bullock’s general invitation, to dinner there one day 
unexpectedly: but there was such a fuss of ill-concealed 
preparation consequent upon my coming, that I never went 
again. Her little boy came in, with an audibly given 
message from the cook, to ask — 

“‘If this was the gentleman as she was to send in the 
best dinner-service and dessert for ? ’ 

45i 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ I looked deaf, but determined never to go again. 

“ Miss Bullock and I, meanwhile, became rather friendly. 
We found out that we mutually disliked each other, and 
were contented with the discovery. If people are worth 
anything, this sort of non -liking is a very good beginning 
of friendship. Every good quality is revealed naturally and 
slowly, and is a pleasant surprise. I found out that Miss 
Bullock was sensible, and even sweet-tempered, when not 
irritated by her step-mother’s endeavours to show her off. 
But she would sulk for hours after Mrs. Bullock’s offensive 
praise of her good points. And I never saw such a black 
passion as she went into, when she suddenly came into the 
room when Mrs. Bullock was telling me of all the offers she 
had had. 

“ My legacy made me feel up to extravagance. I scoured 
the country for a glorious nosegay of camellias, which I 
sent to Sophy on Yalentine’s-day. I durst not add a line ; 
but I wished the flowers could speak, and tell her how I 
loved her. 

“ I called on Miss Tyrrell that day. Miss Caroline was 
more simpering and affected than ever, and full of allusions 
to the day. 

‘“Do you affix much sincerity of meaning to the little 
gallantries of this day, Mr. Harrison ? ’ asked she, in a 
languishing tone. I thought of my camellias, and how my 
heart had gone with them into Sophy’s keeping ; and I told 
her I thought one might often take advantage of such a 
time to hint at feelings one dared not fully express. 

“ I remembered afterwards the forced display she made, 
after Miss Tyrrell left the room, of a valentine. But I took 
no notice at the time ; my head was full of Sophy. 

“It was on that very day that John Brouncker, the 
gardener to all of us who had small gardens to keep in 
order, fell down and injured his wrist severely (I don’t give 
you the details of the case, because they would not interest 
you, being too technical ; if you’ve any curiosity, you will 
find them in the Lancet of August in that year). We all 

45 2 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

liked John, and this accident was felt like a town’s mis- 
fortune. The gardens, too, just wanted doing up. Both 
Mr. Morgan and I went directly to him. It was a very 
awkward case, and his wife and children were crying sadly. 
He himself was in great distress at being thrown out of 
work. He begged us to do something that would cure him 
speedily, as he could not afford to be laid up, with six 
children depending on him for bread. We did not say 
much before him ; but we both thought the arm would have 
to come off, and it was his right arm. We talked it over 
when we came out of the cottage. Mr. Morgan had no 
doubt of the necessity. I went back at dinner-time to see 
the poor fellow. He was feverish and anxious. He had 
caught up some expression of Mr. Morgan’s in the morning, 
and had guessed the measure we had in contemplation. He 
bade his wife leave the room, and spoke to me by myself. 

“ ‘ If you please, sir, I’d rather be done for at once than 
have my arm taken off, and be a burden to my family. I’m 
not afraid of dying ; but I could not stand being a cripple for 
life, eating bread, and not able to earn it.’ 

“ The tears were in his eyes with earnestness. I had all 
along been more doubtful about the necessity of the amputa- 
tion than Mr. Morgan. I knew the improved treatment in 
such cases. In his days there was much more of the rough 
and ready in surgical practice ; so I gave the poor fellow 
some hope. 

“ In the afternoon I met Mr. Bullock. 

“ * So you’re to- try your hand at an amputation, to- 
morrow, I hear. Poor John Brouncker ! I used to tell him 
he was not careful enough about his ladders. Mr. Morgan 
is quite excited about it. He asked me to be present, and 
see how well a man from Guy’s could operate ; he says he is 
sure you’ll do it beautifully. Pah ! no such sights for me, 
thank you.’ 

“ Ruddy Mr. Bullock went a shade or two paler at the 
thought. 

“ ‘ Curious, how professionally a man views these things ! 

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Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

Here’s Mr. Morgan, who has been all along as proud of you 
as if you were his own son, absolutely rubbing bis bands at 
the idea of this crowning glory, this feather in your cap ! 
He told me just now be knew be bad always been too 
nervous to be a good operator, and bad therefore preferred 
sending for White from Chesterton. But now any one 
might have a serious accident who liked, for you would be 
always at band.’ 

“ I told Mr. Bullock, I really thought we might avoid the 
amputation ; but bis mind was preoccupied with the idea of 
it, and he did not care to listen to me. The whole town was 
full of it. That is a charm in a little town, everybody is so 
sympathetically full of the same events. Even Miss 
Horsman stopped me to ask after John Brouncker with 
interest; but she threw cold water upon my intention of 
saving the arm. 

“ ‘ As for the wife and family, we’ll take care of them. 
Think what a fine opportunity you have of showing off, Mr. 
Harrison ! ’ 

“ That was just like her. Always ready with her sug- 
gestions of ill-natured or interested motives. 

“ Mr. Morgan heard my proposal of a mode of treatment 
by which I thought it possible that the arm might be 
saved. 

“ ‘ I differ from you, Mr. Harrison,’ said he. ‘ I regret 
it ; but I differ in toto from you. Your kind heart deceives 
you in this instance. There is no doubt that amputation 
must take place — not later than to-morrow morning, I 
should say. I have made myself at liberty to attend upon 
you, sir; I shall be happy to officiate as your assistant. 
Time was when I should have been proud to be principal ; 
but a little trembling in my arm incapacitates me.’ 

“ I urged my reasons upon him again ; but he was 
obstinate. He had, in fact, boasted so much of my acquire- 
ments as an operator that he was unwilling I should lose 
this opportunity of displaying my skill. He could not see 
that there would be greater skill evinced in saving the arm ; 

454 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

nor did I think of this at the time. I grew angry at his old- 
fashioned narrow-mindedness, as I thought it ; and I became 
dogged in my resolution to adhere to my own course. We 
parted very coolly; and I went straight off to John 
Brouncker to tell him I believed that I could save the 
arm, if he would refuse to have it amputated. When I 
calmed myself a little, before going in and speaking to 
him, I could not help acknowledging that we should run 
some risk of lock-jaw; but, on the whole, and after giving 
most earnest conscientious thought to the case, I was sure 
that my mode of treatment would be best. 

“ He was a sensible man. I told him the difference of 
opinion that existed between Mr. Morgan and myself. I 
said that there might be some little risk attending the non- 
amputation, but that I should guard against it ; and I trusted 
that I should be able to preserve his arm. 

“ * Under God’s blessing,’ said he reverently. I bowed 
my head. I don’t like to talk too frequently of the depend- 
ence which I always felt on that holy blessing, as to the 
result of my efforts ; but I was glad to hear that speech of 
John’s, because it showed a calm and faithful heart ; and I 
had almost certain hopes of him from that time. 

“We agreed that he should tell Mr. Morgan the reason 
of his objections to the amputation, and his reliance on my 
opinion. I determined to recur to every book I had relating 
to such cases, and to convince Mr. Morgan, if I could, of my 
wisdom. Unluckily, I found out afterwards that he had met 
Miss Horsman in the time that intervened before I saw him 
again at his own house that evening ; and she had more than 
hinted that I shrunk from performing the operation, ‘ for very 
good reasons, no doubt. She had heard that the medical 
students in London were a bad set, and were not remarkable 
for regular attendance in the hospitals. She might be mis- 
taken ; but she thought it was, perhaps, quite as well poor 

John Brouncker had not his arm cut off by Was there 

not such a thing as mortification coming on after a clumsy 
operation ? It was, perhaps, only a choice of deaths ! * 

455 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ Mr. Morgan had been stung at all this. Perhaps I did 
not speak quite respectfully enough : I was a good deal 
excited. We only got more and more angry with each other ; 
though he, to do him justice, was as civil as could be all the 
time, thinking that thereby he concealed his vexation and 
disappointment. He did not try to conceal his anxiety about 
poor John. I went home weary and dispirited. I made up 
and took the necessary applications to John ; and, promising 
to return with the dawn of day (I would fain have stayed, 
but I did not wish him to be alarmed about himself), I went 
home, and resolved to sit up and study the treatment of 
similar cases. 

“ Mrs. Bose knocked at the door. 

“ ‘ Come in ! ’ said I sharply. 

“ She said she had seen I had something on my mind all 
day, and she could not go to bed without asking if there was 
nothing she could do. She was good and kind ; and I could 
not help telling her a little of the truth. She listened 
pleasantly ; and I shook her warmly by the hand, thinking 
that though she might not be very wise, her good heart made 
her worth a dozen keen, sharp, hard people, like Miss 
Horsman. 

“When I went at daybreak, I saw John’s wife for a 
few minutes outside of the door. She seemed to wish 
her husband had been in Mr. Morgan’s hands rather 
than mine; but she gave me as good an account as I 
dared to hope for of the manner in which her husband 
had passed the night. This was confirmed by my own 
examination. 

“ When Mr. Morgan and I visited him together later on 
in the day, John said what we had agreed upon the day 
before ; and I told Mr. Morgan openly that it was by my 
advice that amputation was declined. He did not speak to 
me till we had left the house. Then he said — ‘ Now, sir, 
from this time, I consider this case entirely in your hands. 
Only remember the poor fellow has a wife and six children. 
In case you come round to my opinion remember that Mr. 

45 6 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

White could come over, as he has done before, for the 
operation.’ 

“ So Mr. Morgan believed I declined operating because 
I felt myself incapable ! Very well ! I was much 
mortified. 

“ An hour after we parted, I received a note to this 
effect — - 

“ ‘ Dear Sir, — I will take the long round to-day, to leave 
you at liberty to attend to Brouncker’s case, which I feel to 
be a very responsible one 

“ ‘ J. Morgan.’ 

“ This was kindly done. I went back, as soon as I could, 
to John’s cottage. While I was in the inner room with him, 
I heard the Miss Tomkinsons’ voices outside. They had 
called to inquire. Miss Tomkinson came in, and evidently 
was poking and snuffing about. (Mrs. Brouncker told her 
that I was within ; and within I resolved to be till they had 
gone.) 

“ * What is this close smell ? ’ asked she. ‘ I am afraid 
you are not cleanly. Cheese ! — cheese in this cupboard ! No 
wonder there is an unpleasant smell. Don’t you know how 
particular you should be about being clean when there is ill- 
ness about ? ’ 

“ Mrs. Brouncker was exquisitely clean in general, and 
was piqued at these remarks. 

“ ‘ If you please, ma’am, I could not leave John yester- 
day to do any house- work, and Jenny put the dinner things 
away. She is but eight years old.’ 

“ But this did not satisfy Miss Tomkinson, who was 
evidently pursuing the course of her observations. 

“ ‘ Fresh butter, I declare ! Well now, Mrs. Brouncker, 
do you know I don’t allow myself fresh butter at this time 
of the year? How can you save, indeed, with such ex- 
travagance ! ’ 

“ ‘ Please, ma’am,’ answered Mrs. Brouncker, you’d think 

457 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

it strange, if I was to take such liberties in your house as 
you’re taking here.’ 

“ I expected to hear a sharp answer. No ! Miss Tom- 
kinson liked true plain-speaking. The only person in whom 
she would tolerate round-about ways of talking was her 
sister. 

“ ‘ Well, that’s true,’ she said. ‘ Still, you must not be 
above taking advice. Fresh butter is extravagant at this 
time of the year. However, you’re a good kind of woman, 
and I’ve a great respect for John. Send Jenny for some 
broth as soon as he can take it. Come, Caroline, we have 
got to go on to Williams’s.’ 

“ But Miss Caroline said that she was tired, and would 
rest where she was till Miss Tomkinson came back. I was 
a prisoner for some time, I found. When she was alone 
with Mrs. Brouncker, she said — 

“ ‘ You must not be hurt by my sister’s abrupt manner. 
She means well. She has not much imagination or 
sympathy, and cannot understand the distraction of mind 
produced by the illness of a worshipped husband.’ I could 
hear the loud sigh of commiseration which followed this 
speech. Mrs. Brouncker said — 

“ ‘ Please, ma’am, I don’t worship my husband. I would 
not be so wicked.’ 

“ ‘ Goodness ! You don’t think it wicked, do you ? For 
my part, if ... I should worship, I should adore him.’ I 
thought she need not imagine such improbable cases. But 
sturdy Mrs. Brouncker said again — 

“‘I hope I know my duty better. I’ve not learned my 
Commandments for nothing. I know Whom I ought to 
worship.’ 

“ Just then the children came in, dirty and unwashed, 
I have no doubt. And now Miss Caroline’s real nature 
peeped out. She spoke sharply to them, and asked them if 
they had no manners, little pigs as they were, to come 
brushing against her silk gown in that way ? She sweetened 
herself again, and was as sugary as love when Miss 

458 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

Tomkinson returned for her, accompanied by one whose 
voice, ‘ like winds in summer sighing,’ I knew to be my 
dear Sophy’s. 

“ She did not say much ; but what she did say, and the 
manner in which she spoke, was tender and compassionate 
in the highest degree ; and she came to take the four little 
ones back with her to the vicarage, in order that they might 
be out of their mother’s way ; the older two might help at 
home. She offered to wash their hands and faces; and 
when I emerged from my inner chamber, after the Miss 
Tomkinsons had left, I found her with a chubby child on 
her knees, bubbling and spluttering against her white wet 
hand, with a face bright, rosy, and merry under the opera- 
tion. Just as I came in, she said to him, ‘ There, Jemmy, 
now I can kiss you with this nice clean face.’ 

“ She coloured when she saw me. I liked her speaking, 
and I liked her silence. She was silent now, and I ‘ lo’ed her 
a’ the better.’ I gave my directions to Mrs. Brouncker, and 
hastened to overtake Sophy and the children ; but they had 
gone round by the lanes, I suppose, for I saw nothing of 
them. 

“ I was very anxious about the case. At night I went 
again. Miss Horsman had been there; I believe she was 
really kind among the poor, but she could not help leaving 
a sting behind her everywhere. She had been frightening 
Mrs. Brouncker about her husband, and been, I have no 
doubt, expressing her doubts of my skill ; for Mrs. Brouncker 
began — 

“ ‘ Oh, please, sir, if you’ll only let Mr. Morgan take off 
his arm, I will never think the worse of you for not being 
able to do it.’ 

“ I told her it was from no doubt of my own competency 
to perform the operation that I wished to save the arm ; but 
that he himself was anxious to have it spared. 

“ ‘ Ay, bless him ! he frets about not earning enough to 
keep us, if he’s crippled ; but, sir, I don’t care about that. 
£ would work my fingers to the bone, and so would the 

459 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

children ; I’m sure we’d be proud to do for him, and keep 
him ; God bless him ! it would be far better to have him only 
with one arm, than to have him in the churchyard, Miss 
Horsman says ’ 

“ * Confound Miss Horsman ! ’ said I. 

“ ‘ Thank you, Mr. Harrison,’ said her well-known voice 
behind me. She had come out, dark as it was, to bring 
some old linen to Mrs. Brouncker ; for, as I said before, she 
was very kind to all the poor people of Duncombe. 

“ ‘ I beg your pardon ’ ; for I really was sorry for my 
speech — or rather that she had heard it. 

“ ‘ There is no occasion for any apology,’ she replied, 
drawing herself up, and pinching her lips into a very 
venomous shape. 

“ John was doing pretty well ; but of course the danger 
of lock-jaw was not over. Before I left, his wife entreated 
me to take off the arm ; she wrung her hands in her pas- 
sionate entreaty. * Spare him to me, Mr. Harrison,’ she 
implored. Miss Horsman stood by. It was mortifying 
enough ; but I thought of the power which was in my hands, 
as I firmly believed, of saving the limb; and I was inflexible. 

“ You cannot think how pleasantly Mrs. Rose’s sympathy 
came in on my return. To be sure she did not understand 
one word of the case, which I detailed to her; but she 
listened with interest, and, as long as she held her tongue, I 
thought she was really taking it in ; but her first remark was 
as mal-apropos as could be. 

“ ‘ You are anxious to save the tibia — I see completely 
how difficult that will be. My late husband had a case 
exactly similar, and I remember his anxiety ; but you must 
not distress yourself too much, my dear Mr. Harrison ; I 
have no doubt it will end well.’ 

“ I knew she had no grounds for this assurance, and yet 
it comforted me. 

“ However, as it happened, John did fully as well as I 
could have hoped for ; of course, he was long in rallying his 
strength ; and, indeed, sea- air was evidently so necessary for 

460 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

his complete restoration, that I accepted with gratitude Mrs. 
Eose’s proposal of sending him to Highport for a fortnight or 
three weeks. Her kind generosity in this matter made me 
more desirous than ever of paying her every mark of respect 
and attention. 


CHAPTEE XY 

“ About this time there was a sale at Ashmeadow, a pretty 
house in the neighbourhood of Duncombe. It was likewise 
an easy walk, and the spring days tempted many people 
thither, who had no intention of buying anything, but who 
liked the idea of rambling through the woods, gay with early 
primroses and wild daffodils, and of seeing the gardens and 
house, which till now had been shut up from the ingress of 
the townspeople. Mrs. Eose had planned to go, but an un- 
lucky cold prevented her. She begged me to bring her a 
very particular account, saying she delighted in details, and 
always questioned Mr. Eose as to the side-dishes of the 
dinners to which he went. The late Mr. Eose’s conduct was 
always held up as a model to me, by the way. I walked to 
Ashmeadow, pausing or loitering with different parties of 
townspeople, all bound in the same direction. At last I 
found the Vicar and Sophy, and with them I stayed. I sat 
by Sophy and talked and listened. A sale is a very pleasant 
gathering after all. The auctioneer, in a country place, is 
privileged to joke from his rostrum, and, having a personal 
knowledge of most of the people, can sometimes make a very 
keen hit at their circumstances, and turn the laugh against 
them. For instance, on the present occasion, there was a 
farmer present, with his wife, who was notoriously the grey 
mare. The auctioneer was selling some horse-cloths, and 
called out to recommend the article to her, telling her, with 
a knowing look at the company, that they would make her a 

461 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

dashing pair of trousers, if she was in want of such an article. 
She drew herself up with dignity, and said, ‘ Come, John, 
we’ve had enough of this.’ Whereupon there was a burst 
of laughter, and in the midst of it John meekly followed his 
wife out of the place. The furniture in the sitting-rooms 
was, I believe, very beautiful, but I did not notice it much. 
Suddenly I heard the auctioneer speaking to me, ‘ Mr. 
Harrison, won’t you give me a bid for this table ? ’ 

“It was a very pretty little table of walnut-wood. I 
thought it would go into my study very well, so I gave him 
a bid. I saw Miss Horsman bidding against me, so I went 
off with full force, and at last it was knocked down to me. 
The auctioneer smiled, and congratulated me. 

“ ‘ A most useful present for Mrs. Harrison, when that 
lady comes.’ 

“ Everybody laughed. They like a joke about marriage ; 
it is so easy of comprehension. But the table which I had 
thought was for writing, turned out to be a work-table, 
scissors and thimble complete. No wonder I looked foolish. 
Sophy was not looking at me, that was one comfort. She 
was busy arranging a nosegay of wood-anemone and wild 
sorrel. 

“ Miss Horsman came up, with her curious eyes. 

“ ‘ I had no idea things were far enough advanced for you 
to be purchasing a work-table, Mr. Harrison.’ 

“ I laughed off my awkwardness. 

“ ‘ Did not you, Miss Horsman ? You are very much 
behindhand. You have not heard of my piano, then ? ’ 

“ ‘ No, indeed,’ she said, half uncertain whether I was 
serious or not. ‘ Then it seems there is nothing wanting 
but the lady.’ 

“ ‘ Perhaps she may not be wanting either,’ said I ; for I 
wished to perplex her keen curiosity. 


462 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 


CHAPTER XVI 

“ When I got home from my round, I found Mrs. Rose in 
some sorrow. 

“ ‘ Miss Horsman called after you left,’ said she. ‘ Have 
you heard how John Brouncker is at Highport ? ’ 

“ ‘ Very well,’ replied I. ‘ I called on his wife just now, 
and she had just got a letter from him. She had been 
anxious about him, for she had not heard for a week. How- 
ever, all’s right now ; and she has pretty well enough of work, 
at Mrs. Munton’s, as her servant is ill. Oh, they’ll do, never 
fear.’ 

“ ‘ At Mrs. Munton’s ? Oh, that accounts for it, then. 
She is so deaf, and makes such blunders.’ 

“ ‘ Accounts for what ? ’ asked I. 

“ * Oh, perhaps I had better not tell you,’ hesitated Mrs. 
Rose. 

“ ‘ Yes, tell me at once. I beg your pardon, but I hate 
mysteries.’ 

“ ‘ You are so like my poor dear Mr. Rose. He used to 
speak to me just in that sharp, cross way. It is only that 
Miss Horsman called. She had been making a collection 
for John Brouncker’ s widow and ’ 

“ ‘ But the man’s alive ! ’ said I. 

“ ‘ So it seems. But Mrs. Munton had told her that he 
was dead. And she has got Mr. Morgan’s name down at 
the head of the list, and Mr. Bullock’s.’ 

“ Mr. Morgan and I had got into a short, cool way of 
speaking to each other ever since we had differed so much 
about the treatment of Brouncker’ s arm ; and I had heard 
once or twice of his shakes of the head over John’s case. 
He would not have spoken against my method for the world, 
and fancied that he concealed his fears. 

“ * Miss Horsman is very ill-natured, I think,’ sighed 
forth Mrs. Rose. 


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Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ I saw that something had been said of which I had not 
heard, for the mere fact of collecting money for the widow 
was good-natured, whoever did it ; so I asked, quietly, what 
she had said. 

“ ‘ Oh, I don’t know if I should tell you. I only know 
she made me cry ; for I’m not well, and I can’t bear to hear 
any one that I live with abused.’ 

“ Come ! this was pretty plain. 

“ ‘ What did Miss Horsman say of me ? ’ asked I, half 
laughing, for I knew there was no love lost between us. 

“ * Oh, she only said she wondered you could go to sales, 
and spend your money there, when your ignorance had 
made Jane Brouncker a widow, and her children fatherless.’ 

“ * Pooh ! pooh ! John’s alive, and likely to live as long 
as you or I, thanks to you, Mrs. Bose.’ 

“ When my work-table came home, Mrs. Bose was so 
struck with its beauty and completeness, and I was so much 
obliged to her for her identification of my interests with hers, 
and the kindness of her whole conduct about John, that I 
begged her to accept of it. She seemed very much pleased ; 
and, after a few apologies, she consented to take it, and 
placed it in the most conspicuous part of the front parlour, 
where she usually sat. There was a good deal of morning 
calling in Duncombe after the sale, and during this time the 
fact of John being alive was established to the conviction of 
all except Miss Horsman, who, I believe, still doubted. I 
myself told Mr. Morgan, who immediately went to reclaim 
his money ; saying to me, that he was thankful for the 
information ; he was truly glad to hear it ; and he shook 
me warmly by the hand for the first time for a month. 


464 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 


CHAPTER XVII 

“ A few days after the sale, I was in the consulting-room. 
The servant must have left the folding-doors a little ajar, 
I think. Mrs. Munton came to call on Mrs. Rose ; and the 
former being deaf, I heard all the speeches of the latter lady, 
as she was obliged to speak very loud in order to be heard. 
She began — 

“ ‘ This is a great pleasure, Mrs. Munton, so seldom as 
you are well enough to go out.’ 

“ Mumble, mumble, mumble, through the door. 

“ ‘ Oh, very well, thank you. Take this seat, and then 
you can admire my new work-table, ma’am ; a present from 
Mr. Harrison.’ 

“ Mumble, mumble. 

“ ‘ Who could have told you, ma’am ? Miss Horsman ? 
Oh, yes, I showed it Miss Horsman.’ 

“ Mumble, mumble. 

“ ‘ I don’t quite understand you, ma’am. 

“ Mumble, mumble. 

“ ‘ I’m not blushing, I believe. I really am quite in the 
dark as to what you mean.’ 

“ Mumble, mumble. 

“ ‘ Oh, yes, Mr. Harrison and I are most comfortable 
together. He reminds me so of my dear Mr. Rose — just as 
fidgety and anxious in his profession.’ 

“ Mumble, mumble. 

“ ‘I’m sure you are joking now, ma’am.’ Then I heard 
a pretty loud — 

“ ‘ Oh, no ; ’ mumble, mumble, mumble, for a long 
time. 

“ ‘ Did he really ? Well, I’m sure I don’t know. I should 
be sorry to think he was doomed to be unfortunate in so 
serious an affair ; but you know my undying regard for the 
late Mr. Rose.’ 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ Another long mumble. 

“ ‘ You’re very kind, I’m sure. Mr. Rose always thought 
more of my happiness than his own ’ — a little crying — ‘ but 
the turtle-dove has always been my ideal, ma’am.’ 

“ Mumble, mumble. 

‘“No one could have been happier than I. As you say, 
it is a compliment to matrimony.’ 

“ Mumble. 

“ ‘ Oh, but you must not repeat such a thing ! Mr. 
Harrison would not like it. He can’t bear to have his affairs 
spoken about.’ 

“ Then there was a change of subject ; an inquiry after 
some poor person, I imagine. I heard Mrs. Rose say — 

“ ‘ She has got a mucous membrane, I’m afraid, ma’am.’ 

“ A commiserating mumble. 

“ ‘ Not always fatal. I believe Mr. Rose knew some 
cases that lived for years after it was discovered that they 
had a mucous membrane.’ A pause. Then Mrs. Rose 
spoke in a different tone. 

“ ‘ Are you sure, ma’am, there is no mistake about what 
he said ? ’ 

“ Mumble. 

“ ‘ Pray don’t be so observant, Mrs. Munton ; you find 
out too much. One can have no little secrets.’ 

“ The call broke up ; and I heard Mrs. Munton say in 
the passage, ‘ I wish you joy, ma’am, with all my heart. 
There’s no use denying it; for I’ve seen all along what 
would happen.’ 

“ When I went in to dinner, I said to Mrs. Rose — 

“ * You’ve had Mrs. Munton here, I think. Did she 
bring any news ? ’ To my surprise, she bridled and simpered, 
and replied, ‘ Oh, you must not ask, Mr. Harrison ; such 
foolish reports ! ’ 

“ I did not ask, as she seemed to wish me not, and I 
knew there were silly reports always about. Then I think 
she was vexed that I did not ask. Altogether she went on 
so strangely that I could not help looking at her ; and then 

466 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

she took up a hand- screen, and held it between me and her. 
I really felt rather anxious. 

“ * Are you not feeling well ? * said I innocently. 

“ ‘ Oh, thank you, I believe I’m quite well ; only the room 
is rather warm, is it not ? ’ 

“ ‘ Let me put the blinds down for you ? the sun begins 
to have a good deal of power.’ I drew down the blinds. 

“ ‘ You are so attentive, Mr. Harrison. Mr. Eose him- 
self never did more for my little wishes than you do.’ 

“ * I wish I could do more — I wish I could show you 

how much I feel’ her kindness to John Brouncker, I 

was going on to say ; but I was just then called out to a 
patient. Before I went I turned back, and said — 

“ ‘ Take care of yourself, my dear Mrs. Rose ; you had 
better rest a little.’ 

“ ‘ For your sake, I will,’ said she tenderly. 

“ I did not care for whose sake she did it. Only I really 
thought she was not quite well, and required rest. I thought 
she was more affected than usual at tea-time ; and could have 
been angry with her nonsensical ways once or twice, but that 
I knew the real goodness of her heart. She said she wished 
she had the power to sweeten my life as she could my tea. 
I told her what a comfort she had been during my late 
time of anxiety ; and then I stole out to try if I could hear 
the evening singing at the vicarage, by standing close to the 
garden-wall. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

“ The next morning I met Mr. Bullock by appointment 
to talk a little about the legacy which was paid into his 
hands. As I was leaving his office, feeling full of my 
riches, I met Miss Horsman. She smiled rather grimly, 
and said — 


467 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ ‘ Oh ! Mr. Harrison, I must congratulate you, I believe. 
I don’t know whether I ought to have known, but as I 
do, I must wish you joy. A very nice little sum, too. I 
always said you would have money.’ 

“ So she had found out my legacy, had she ? Well, it 
was no secret, and one likes the reputation of being a 
person of property. Accordingly I smiled, and said I was 
much obliged to her ; and, if I could alter the figures to my 
liking, she might congratulate me still more. 

“ She said, ‘ Oh, Mr. Harrison, you can’t have everything. 
It would be better the other way, certainly. Money is the 
great thing, as you’ve found out. The relation died most 
opportunely, I must say.’ 

“ ‘ He was no relative,’ said I ; ‘ only an intimate 
friend.’ 

“ ‘ Dear-ah-me ! I thought it had been a brother ! Well, 
at any rate, the legacy is safe.’ 

“ I wished her good morning, and passed on. Before 
long I was sent for to Miss Tomkinson’s. 

“ Miss Tomkinson sat in severe state to receive me. I 
went in with an air of ease, because I always felt so 
uncomfortable. 

‘“Is this true that I hear ? ’ asked she, in an inquisitorial 
manner. 

“ I thought she alluded to my five hundred pounds ; so I 
smiled, and said that I believed it was. 

“ ‘ Can money be so great an object with you, Mr. 
Harrison ? ’ she asked again. 

“ I said I had never cared much for money, except a£ 
an assistance to any plan of settling in life ; and then, as I 
did not like her severe way of treating the subject, I said 
that I hoped every one was well; though of course I 
expected some one was ill, or I should not have been 
sent for. 

“ Miss Tomkinson looked very grave and sad. Then she 
answered : ‘ Caroline is very poorly — the old palpitations at 
the heart ; but of course that is nothing to you.’ 

468 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ I said I was very sorry. She had a weakness there, I 
knew. Could I see her? I might be able to order some- 
thing for her. 

“ I thought I heard Miss Tomkinson say something in a 
low voice about my being a heartless deceiver. Then she 
spoke up. ‘I was always distrustful of you, Mr. Harrison. 
I never liked your looks. I begged Caroline again and again 
not to confide in you. I foresaw how it would end. And 
now I fear her precious life will be a sacrifice.’ 

“ I begged her not to distress herself, for in all probability 
there was very little the matter with her sister. Might I 
see her ? 

“ ‘ No ! ’ she said shortly, standing up as if to dismiss me. 
‘ There has been too much of this seeing and calling. By 
my consent, you shall never see her again.’ 

“ I bowed. I was annoyed, of course. Such a dismissal 
might injure my practice just when I was most anxious to 
increase it. 

“ ‘ Have you no apology, no excuse to offer ? ’ 

“ I said I had done my best ; I did not feel that there was 
any reason to offer an apology. I wished her good morning. 
Suddenly she came forwards. 

“ ‘ Oh, Mr. Harrison,’ said she, ‘ if you have really loved 
Caroline, do not let a little paltry money make you desert 
her for another.’ 

“ I was struck dumb. Loved Miss Caroline ! I loved 
Miss Tomkinson a great deal better, and yet I disliked her. 
She went on — 

“ ‘ I have saved nearly three thousand pounds. If you 
think you are too poor to marry without money, I will give 
it all to Caroline. I am strong, and can go on working ; 
but she is weak, and this disappointment will kill her.’ She 
sat down suddenly, and covered her face with her hands. 
Then she looked up. 

“ ‘ You are unwilling, I see. Don’t suppose I would 
have urged you if it had been for myself ; but she has had 
so much sorrow.’ And now she fairly cried aloud. I tried 

469 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

to explain ; but she would not listen, but kept saying, ‘ Leave 
the house, sir ! leave the house ! ’ But I would be heard. 

“ ‘ I have never had any feeling warmer than respect for 
Miss Caroline, and I have never shown any different feeling. 
I never for an instant thought of making her my wife, and 
she has had no cause in my behaviour to imagine I enter- 
tained any such intention.’ 

“ ‘ This is adding insult to injury,’ said she. ‘ Leave the 
house, sir, this instant ! ’ 


CHAPTER XIX 

“I went, and sadly enough. In a small town such an 
occurrence is sure to be talked about, and to make a great 
deal of mischief. When I went home to dinner I was so 
full of it, and foresaw so clearly that I should need some 
advocate soon to set the case in its right light, that I deter- 
mined on making a confidante of good Mrs. Rose. I could 
not eat. She watched me tenderly, and sighed when she saw 
my want of appetite. 

“ ‘ I am sure you have something on your mind, Mr. 
Harrison. Would it be — would it not be — a relief to impart 
it to some sympathising friend ? ’ 

“ It was just what I wanted to do. 

“ ‘ My dear kind Mrs. Rose,’ said I, ‘ I must tell you, if 
you will listen.’ 

“ She took up the fire-screen, and held it, as yesterday, 
between me and her. 

“ ‘ The most unfortunate misunderstanding has taken 
place. Miss Tomkinson thinks that I have been paying 
attentions to Miss Caroline ; when, in fact — may I tell you, 
Mrs. Rose ? — my affections are placed elsewhere. Perhaps 
you have found it out already ? ’ for indeed I thought I had 
been too much in love to conceal my attachment to Sophy 

470 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

from any one who knew my movements as well as Mrs. 
Eose. 

“ She hung down her head, and said she believed she 
had found out my secret. 

“ ‘ Then only think how miserably I am situated. If I 
have any hope — oh, Mrs. Eose, do you think I have any 
hope ’ 

“ She put the hand-screen still more before her face, and 
after some hesitation she said she thought ‘ If I persevered — 
in time — I might have hope.’ And then she suddenly got 
up, and left the room. 


CHAPTEE XX 

“ That afternoon I met Mr. Bullock in the street. My mind 
was so full of the affair with Miss Tomkinson that I should 
have passed him without notice, if he had not stopped me 
short, and said that he must speak to me ; about my won- 
derful five hundred pounds, I supposed. But I did not care 
for that now. 

“ ‘ What is this I hear,’ said he severely, 1 about your 
engagement with Mrs. Eose ? * 

“ 1 With Mrs. Eose ! ’ said I, almost laughing, although 
my heart was heavy enough. 

“ ‘ Yes ! with Mrs. Eose ! ’ said he sternly. 

“ ‘ I’m not engaged to Mrs. Eose,’ I replied. 1 There is 
some mistake.’ 

“ * I’m glad to hear it, sir,’ he answered, ‘ very glad. It 
requires some explanation, however. Mrs. Eose has been 
congratulated, and has acknowledged the truth of the report. 
It is confirmed by many facts. The work-table you bought, 
confessing your intention of giving it to your future wife, is 
given to her. How do you account for these things, sir ? ’ 

“I said I did not pretend to account for them. At 
47i 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

present a good deal was inexplicable ; and, when I could 
give an explanation, I did not think that I should feel 
myself called upon to give it to him. 

“‘Very well, sir; very well,’ replied he, growing very 
red. ‘I shall take care and let Mr. Morgan know the 
opinion I entertain of you. What do you think that man 
deserves to be called who enters a family under the plea 
of friendship, and takes advantage of his intimacy to win 
the affections of the daughter, and then engages himself 
to another woman ? ’ 

“ I thought he referred to Miss Caroline. I simply said 
I could only say that I was not engaged; and that Miss 
Tomkinson had been quite mistaken in supposing I had 
been paying any attentions to her sister beyond those 
dictated by mere civility. 

“ ‘ Miss Tomkinson ! Miss Caroline ! I don’t understand 
to what you refer. Is there another victim to your perfidy ? 
What I allude to are the attentions you have paid to my 
daughter, Miss Bullock.’ 

“ Another ! I could but disclaim, as I had done in the 
case of Miss Caroline ; but I began to be in despair. Would 
Miss Horsman, too, come forward as a victim to my tender 
affections ? It was all Mr. Morgan’s doing, who had 
lectured me into this tenderly deferential manner. But, 
on the score of Miss Bullock, I was brave in my innocence. 
I had positively disliked her; and so I told her father, 
though in more civil and measured terms, adding that I 
was sure the feeling was reciprocal. 

“ He looked as if he would like to horsewhip me. I 
longed to call him out. 

‘“I hope my daughter has had sense enough to despise 
you; I hope she has, that’s all. I trust my wife may be 
mistaken as to her feelings.’ 

“ So, he had heard all through the medium of his wife. 
That explained something, and rather calmed me. I begged 
he would ask Miss Bullock if she had ever thought I had 
any ulterior object in my intercourse with her, beyond mere 

472 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

friendliness (and not so much of that, I might have added). 
I would refer it to her. 

“ ‘ Girls,’ said Mr. Bullock, a little more quietly, ‘ do not 
like to acknowledge that they have been deceived and dis- 
appointed. I -consider my wife’s testimony as likely to be 
nearer the truth than my daughter’s, for that reason. And 
she tells me she never doubted but that, if not absolutely 
engaged, you understood each other perfectly. She is sure 
Jemima is deeply wounded by your engagement to Mrs. 
Rose.’ 

“ ‘ Once for all, I am not engaged to anybody. Till you 
have seen your daughter, and learnt the truth from her, 
I will wish you farewell.’ 

“ I bowed in a stiff, haughty manner, and walked off 
homewards. But when I got to my own door, I remem- 
bered Mrs. Rose, and all that Mr. Bullock had said about 
her acknowledging the truth of the report of my engagement 
to her. Where could I go to be safe? Mrs. Rose, Miss 
Bullock, Miss Caroline — they lived as it were at the three 
points of an equilateral triangle ; here was I in the centre. 
I would go to Mr. Morgan’s, and drink tea with him. 
There, at any rate, I was secure from any one wanting to 
marry me; and I might be as professionally bland as I 
liked, without being misunderstood. But there, too, a 
contretemps awaited me. 


CHAPTER XXI 

“ Mr. Morgan was looking grave. After a minute or two 
of humming and hawing, he said — 

“ ‘ I have been sent for to Miss Caroline Tomkinson, Mr. 
Harrison. I am sorry to hear of this. I am grieved to 
find that there seems to have been some trifling with the 
affections of a very worthy lady. Miss Tomkinson, who i/a 

473 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

in sad distress, tells me that they had every reason to 
believe that you were attached to her sister. May I ask 
if you do not intend to marry her ? ’ 

“ I said, nothing was farther from my thoughts. 

“ ‘ My dear sir,’ said Mr. Morgan, rather agitated, ‘ do 
not express yourself so strongly and vehemently. It is 
derogatory to the sex to speak so. It is more respectful 
to say, in these cases, that you do not venture to entertain 
a hope; such a manner is generally understood, and does 
not sound like such positive objection.’ 

“ ‘ I cannot help it, sir ; I must talk in my own natural 
manner. I would not speak disrespectfully of any woman ; 
but nothing should induce me to marry Miss Caroline 
Tomkinson; not if she were Venus herself, and Queen of 
England into the bargain. I cannot understand what has 
given rise to the idea.’ 

“ ‘ Indeed, sir ; I think that is very plain. You have a 
trifling case to attend to in the house, and you invariably 
make it a pretext for seeing and conversing with the lady.’ 

u ‘ That was her doing, not mine ! ’ said I vehemently. 

“ ‘ Allow me to go on. You are discovered on your knees 
before her — a positive injury to the establishment, as Miss 
Tomkinson observes; a most passionate valentine is sent; 
and, when questioned, you acknowledge the sincerity of 
meaning which you affix to such things.’ He stopped; 
for in his earnestness he had been talking more quickly 
than usual, and was out of breath. I burst in with my 
explanations — 

“ ‘ The valentine I know nothing about.’ 

“ ‘ It is in your handwriting,’ said he coldly. ‘ I should 
be most deeply grieved to — in fact, I will not think it possible 
of your father’s son. But I must say, it is in your hand- 
writing.’ 

“ I tried again, and at last succeeded in convincing him 
that I had been only unfortunate, not intentionally guilty of 
winning Miss Caroline’s affections. I said that I had been 
endeavouring, it was true, to practise the manner he had 

474 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

recommended, of universal sympathy, and recalled to his 
mind some of the advice he had given me. He was a good 
deal hurried. 

“ ‘ But, my dear sir, I had no idea that you would carry 
it out to such consequences. “ Philandering,” Miss Tomkin- 
son called it. That is a hard word, sir. My manner has 
been always tender and sympathetic ; but I am not aware 
that I ever excited any hopes ; there never was any report 
about me. I believe no lady was ever attached to me. 
You must strive after this happy medium, sir.’ 

“ I was still distressed. Mr. Morgan had only heard of 
one, but there were three ladies (including Miss Bullock) 
hoping to marry me. He saw my annoyance. 

“ ‘ Don’t be too much distressed about it, my dear sir ; 
I was sure you were too honourable a man, from the first. 
With a conscience like yours, I would defy the world.’ 

“ He became anxious to console me, and I was hesitating 
whether I would not tell him all my three dilemmas, when 
a note was brought in to him. It was from Mrs. Munton. 
He threw it to me, with a face of dismay. 

“ ‘ My dear Mr. Morgan, — I most sincerely congratulate 
you on the happy matrimonial engagement I hear you have 
formed with Miss Tomkinson. All previous circumstances, 
as I have just been remarking to Miss Horsman, combine to 
promise you felicity. And I wish that every blessing may 
attend your married life. — Most sincerely yours, 

“ ‘ Jane Munton.’ 

“ I could not help laughing, he had been so lately con- 
gratulating himself that no report of the kind had ever been 
circulated about himself. He said — 

“ ‘ Sir ! this is no laughing matter ; I assure you it is 
not.’ 

“ I could not resist asking, if I was to conclude that there 
was no truth in the report. 

“ * Truth, sir ! it’s a lie from beginning to end. I don’t 
475 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

like to speak too decidedly about any lady ; and I’ve a great 
respect for Miss Tomkinson ; but I do assure you, sir, I’d as 
soon marry one of Her Majesty’s Life Guards. I would 
rather; it would be more suitable. Miss Tomkinson is a 
very worthy lady; but she’s a perfect grenadier.’ 

“ He grew very nervous. He was evidently insecure. 
He thought it not impossible that Miss Tomkinson might 
come and marry him, vi et armis. I am sure he had some 
dim idea of abduction in his mind. Still, he was better off 
than I was ; for he was in his own house, and report had 
only engaged him to one lady ; while I stood, like Paris, 
among three contending beauties. Truly, an apple of discord 
had been thrown into our little town. I suspected at the 
time, what I know now, that it was Miss Horsman’s doing ; 
not intention illy, I will do her the justice to say. But she 
had shouted out the story of my behaviour to Miss Caroline 
up Mrs. Munton’s trumpet ; and that lady, possessed with 
the idea that I was engaged to Mrs. Rose, had imagined the 
masculine pronoun to relate to Mr. Morgan, whom she had 
seen only that afternoon tete-a-tete with Miss Tomkinson, 
condoling with her in some tender deferential manner, I’ll be 
bound. 


CHAPTER XXII 

“ I was very cowardly. I positively dared not go home ; 
but at length I was obliged to. I had done all I could to 
console Mr. Morgan, but he refused to be comforted. I 
went at last. I rang at the bell. I don’t know who opened 
the door, but I think it was Mrs. Rose. I kept a handker- 
chief to my face, and, muttering something about having a 
dreadful toothache, I flew up to my room and bolted the 
door. I had no candle ; but what did that signify. I was 
safe. I could not sleep ; and when I did fall into a sort of 

476 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

doze, it was ten times worse wakening up. I could not 
remember whether I was engaged or not. If I was engaged, 
who was the lady? I had always considered myself as 
rather plain than otherwise; but surely I had made a 
mistake. Fascinating I certainly must be ; but perhaps I 
was handsome. As soon as day dawned, I got up to ascer- 
tain the fact at the looking-glass. Even with the best 
disposition to be convinced, I could not see any striking 
beauty in my round face, with an unshaven beard and a 
nightcap like a fool’s cap at the top. No ! I must be content 
to be plain, but agreeable. All this I tell you in confidence. 
I would not have my little bit of vanity known for the world. 
I fell asleep towards morning. I was awakened by a tap at 
my door. It was Peggy : she put in a hand with a note. I 
took it. 

“ ‘ It is not from Miss Horsman ? ’ said I, half in joke, 
half in very earnest fright. 

“ * No, sir ; Mr. Morgan’s man brought it.’ 

“ I opened it. I ran thus — 

“ 1 My dear Sir, — It is now nearly twenty years since I 
have had a little relaxation, and I find that my health 
requires it. I have also the utmost confidence in you, and 
I am sure this feeling is shared by our patients. I have, 
therefore, no scruple in putting in execution a hastily-formed 
plan, and going to Chesterton to catch the early train on my 
way to Paris. If your accounts are good, I shall remain 
away probably a fortnight. Direct to Meurice’s. — Yours 
most truly, 

“ ‘ J. Morgan. 

“ ‘ P.S. — Perhaps it may be as well not to name where I 
am gone, especially to Miss Tomkinson.’ 

“ He had deserted me. He — with only one report — had 
left me to stand my ground with three. 

“ ‘ Mrs. Rose’s kind regards, sir, and it’s nearly nine 
o’clock. Breakfast has been ready this hour, sir.’ 

477 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ ‘ Tell Mrs. Eose I don’t want any breakfast. Or stay ’ 
(for I was very hungry), ‘ I will take a cup of tea and some 
toast up here.’ 

“ Peggy brought the tray to the door. 

“ ‘ I hope you’re not ill, sir ? ’ said she kindly. 

“ ‘ Not very. I shall be better when I get into the air.’ 

“ ‘ Mrs. Rose seems sadly put about,’ said she ; ‘ she 
seems so grieved like.’ 

“ I watched my opportunity, and went out by the side- 
door in the garden. 


CHAPTER XXIII 

“ I had intended to ask Mr. Morgan to call at the vicarage, 
and give his parting explanation before they could hear the 
report. Now I thought that, if I could see Sophy, I would 
speak to her myself ; but I did not wish to encounter the 
Yicar. I went along the lane at the back of the vicarage, 
and came suddenly upon Miss Bullock. She coloured, and 
asked me if I would allow her to speak to me. I could only 
be resigned ; but I thought I could probably set one report 
at rest by this conversation. 

“ She was almost crying. 

“‘I must tell you, Mr. Harrison, I have watched you 
here in order to speak to you. I heard with the greatest 
regret of papa’s conversation with you yesterday.’ She was 
fairly crying. ‘ I believe Mrs. Bullock finds me in her way, 
and wants to have me married. It is the only way in which 
I can account for such a complete misrepresentation as she 
had told papa. I don’t care for you, in the least, sir. You 
never paid me any attentions. You’ve been almost rude to 
line ; and I have liked you the better. That’s to say, I never 
have liked you.’ 

“‘I am truly glad to hear what you say,’ answered I. 

478 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

‘ Don’t distress yourself. I was sure there was some 
mistake.’ 

“ But she cried bitterly. 

“ ‘ It is so hard to feel that my marriage — my absence — 
is desired so earnestly at home. I dread every new acquaint- 
ance we form with any gentleman. It is sure to be the 
beginning of a series of attacks on him, of which everybody 
must be aware, and to which they may think I am a willing 
party. But I should not much mind if it were not for the 
conviction that she wishes me so earnestly away. Oh, my 
own dear mamma, you would never ’ 

“ She cried more than ever. I was truly sorry for her, 
and had just taken her hand, and began — ‘ My dear Miss 

Bullock ’ when the door in the wall of the vicarage 

garden opened. It was the Vicar letting out Miss Tomkin- 
son, whose face was all swelled with crying. He saw me ; 
but he did not bow, or make any sign. On the contrary, he 
looked down as from a severe eminence, and shut the door 
hastily. I turned to Miss Bullock. 

“ ‘ I am afraid the Vicar has been hearing something to 
my disadvantage from Miss Tomkinson, and it is very 

awkward ’ She finished my sentence — ‘ To have found 

us here together. Yes ; but, as long as we understand that 
we do not care for each other, it does not signify what 
people say.’ 

“ ‘ Oh, but to me it does,’ said I. ‘ I may, perhaps, tell 
you — but do not mention it to a creature — I am attached to 
Miss Hutton.’ 

“ ‘ To Sophy ! Oh, Mr. Harrison, I am so glad ; she is 
such a sweet creature. Oh, I wish you joy.’ 

“ ‘ Not yet ; I have never spoken about it.’ 

“ ‘ Oh, but it is certain to happen.’ She jumped with a 
woman’s rapidity to a conclusion. And then she began to 
praise Sophy. Never was a man yet who did not like to 
hear the praises of his mistress. I walked by her side ; we 
came past the front of the vicarage together. I looked up, 
and saw Sophy there, and she saw me. 

479 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ That afternoon she was sent away — sent to visit her 
aunt ostensibly ; in reality, because of the reports of my 
conduct, which were showered down upon the Vicar, and 
one of which he saw confirmed by his own eyes. 


CHAPTER XXIV 

“ I heaed of Sophy’s departure as one heard of everything, 
soon after it had taken place. I did not care for the awk- 
wardness of my situation, which had so perplexed and 
amused me in the morning. I felt that something was 
wrong ; that Sophy was taken away from me. I sank into 
despair. If anybody liked to marry me, they might. I was 
willing to be sacrificed. I did not speak to Mrs. Rose. She 
wondered at me, and grieved over my coldness, I saw ; but 
I had left off feeling anything. Miss Tomkinson cut me in 
the street ; and it did not break my heart. Sophy was gone 
away ; that was all I cared for. Where had they sent her 
to ? Who was her aunt that she should go and visit her ? 
One day I met Lizzie, who looked as though she had been 
told not to speak to me ; but I could not help doing so. 

“ ‘ Have you heard from your sister ? ’ said I. 

“ ‘ Yes.’ 

“ ‘ Where is she ? I hope she is well.’ 

“ ‘ She is at the Leoms ’ — I was not much wiser. ‘ Oh 
yes, she is very well. Fanny says she was at the Assembly 
last Wednesday, and danced all night with the officers.’ 

“ I thought I would enter myself a member of the Peace 
Society at once. She was a little flirt, and a hard-hearted 
creature. I don’t think I wished Lizzie good-bye. 


480 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 


CHAPTER XXV 

“ What most people would have considered a more serious 
evil than Sophy’s absence, befell me. I found that my 
practice was falling off. The prejudice of the town ran 
strongly against me. Mrs. Munton told me all that was said. 
She heard it through Miss Horsman. It was said— cruel 
little town— that my negligence or ignorance had been the 
cause of Walter’s death ; that Miss Tyrrell had become 
worse under my treatment ; and that John Brouncker was 
all but dead, if he was not quite, from my mismanagement. 
All Jack Marshland’s jokes and revelations, which had, I 
thought, gone to oblivion, were raked up to my discredit. He 
himself, formerly, to my astonishment, rather a favourite 
with the good people of Duncombe, was spoken of as one of 
my disreputable friends. 

“ In short, so prejudiced were the good people of Dun- 
combe that I believe a very little would have made them 
suspect me of a brutal highway robbery, which took place in 
the neighbourhood about this time. Mrs. Munton told me, 
a projpos of the robbery, that she had never yet understood 
the cause of my year’s imprisonment in Newgate ; she had 
no doubt, from what Mr. Morgan had told her, there was 
some good reason for it ; but if I would tell her the 
particulars, she should like to know them. 

“ Miss Tomkinson sent for Mr. White, from Chesterton, 
to see Miss Caroline; and, as he was coming over, all our 
old patients seemed to take advantage of it, and send for 
him too. 

“ But the worst of all was the Vicar’s manner to me. If 
he had cut me, I could have asked him why he did so. But 
the freezing change in his behaviour was indescribable, 
though bitterly felt. I heard of Sophy’s gaiety from Lizzie. 
I thought of writing to her. Just then Mr. Morgan’s fort- 
night of absence expired. I was wearied out by Mrs. Bose’s 

481 2 1 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

tender vagaries, and took no comfort from her sympathy, 
which indeed I rather avoided. Her tears irritated, instead 
of grieving, me. I wished I could tell her at once that I had 
no intention of marrying her. 


CHAPTER XXYI 

“ Mr. Morgan had not been at home above two hours before 
he was sent for to the vicarage. Sophy had come back, and 
I had never heard of it. She had come home ill and weary, 
and longing for rest : and the rest seemed approaching with 
awful strides. Mr. Morgan forgot all his Parisian adventures, 
and all his terror of Miss Tomkinson, when he was sent for 
to see her. She was ill of a fever, which made fearful pro- 
gress. When he told me, I wished to force the vicarage 
door, if I might but see her. But I controlled myself ; and 
only cursed my weak indecision, which had prevented my 
writing to her. It was well I had no patients : they would 
have had but a poor chance of attention. I hung about 
Mr. Morgan, who might see her, and did see her. But, 
from what he told me, I perceived that the measures he was 
adopting were powerless to check so sudden and violent an 
illness. Oh ! if they would but let me see her ! But that 
was out of the question. It was not merely that the Yicar 
had heard of my character as a gay Lothario, but that doubts 
had been thrown out of my medical skill. The accounts 
grew worse. Suddenly my resolution was taken. Mr. 
Morgan’s very regard for Sophy made him more than usually 
timid in his practice. I had my horse saddled, and galloped 
to Chesterton. I took the express train to town. I went 

to Dr. . I told him every particular of the case. He 

listened ; but shook his head. He wrote down a prescrip- 
tion, and recommended a new preparation, not yet in full 
use — a preparation of a poison, in fact. 

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Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ ‘ It may save her,’ said he. ‘ It is a chance, in such 
a state of things as you describe. It must be given on 
the fifth day, if the pulse will bear it. Crabbe makes up 
the preparation most skilfully. Let me hear from you, 
I beg.’ 

“ I went to Crabbe’s ; I begged to make it up myself ; but 
my hands trembled, so that I could not weigh the quanti- 
ties. I asked the young man to do it for me. I went, with- 
out touching food, to the station, with my medicine and my 
prescription in my pocket. Back we flew through the 
country. I sprang on Bay Maldon, which my groom had 
in waiting, and galloped across the country to Duncombe. 

“ But I drew bridle when I came to the top of the hill — 
the hill above the old hall, from which we catch the first 
glimpse of the town, for I thought within myself that she 
might be dead ; and I dreaded to come near certainty. The 
hawthorns were out in the woods, the young lambs were in 
the meadows, the song of the thrushes filled the air ; but it 
only made the thought the more terrible. 

“ ‘ What if, in this world of hope and life, she lies dead ! ’ 
I heard the church bells soft and clear. I sickened to listen. 
Was it the passing bell ? No ! it was ringing eight o’clock. 
I put spurs to my horse, down hill as it was. We dashed 
into the town. I turned him, saddle and bridle, into the 
stable-yard, and went off to Mr. Morgan’s. 

“ * Is she ’ said I. ‘ How is she ? ’ 

“ ‘ Very ill. My poor fellow, I see how it is with you. 
She may live — but I fear. My dear sir, I am very much 
afraid.’ 

“ I told him of my journey and consultation with Dr. , 

and showed him the prescription. His hands trembled as he 
put on his spectacles to read it. 

“ ‘ This is a very dangerous medicine, sir,’ said he, with 
his finger under the name of the poison. 

“ ‘It is a new preparation,’ said I. ‘ Dr. relies 

much upon it.’ 

“ ‘ I dare not administer it,’ he replied. ‘ I have never 

483 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

tried it. It must be very powerful. I dare not play tricks 
in this case.’ 

“ I believe I stamped with impatience ; but it was all of 
no use. My journey had been in vain. The more I urged 
the imminent danger of the case requiring some powerful 
remedy, the more nervous he became. 

“ I told him I would throw up the partnership. I 
threatened him with that, though, in fact, it was only what 
I felt I ought to do, and had resolved upon before Sophy’s 
illness, as I had lost the confidence of his patients. He only 
said — 

‘“I cannot help it, sir. I shall regret it for your father’s 
sake ; but I must do my duty. I dare not run the risk of 
giving Miss Sophy this violent medicine — a preparation of a 
deadly poison.’ 

“ I left him without a word. He was quite right in 
adhering to his own views, as I can see now ; but at the 
time I thought him brutal and obstinate. 


CHAPTEE XXYII 

“ I went home. I spoke rudely to Mrs. Eose, who awaited 
my return at the door. I rushed past, and locked myself in 
my room. I could not go to bed. 

“ The morning sun came pouring in, and enraged me, as 
everything did since Mr. Morgan refused. I pulled the blind 
down so violently that the string broke. What did it signify ? 
The light might come in. What was the sun to me ? And 
then I remembered that that sun might be shining on her 
— dead. 

“ I sat down and covered my face. Mrs. Eose knocked 
at the door. I opened it. She had never been in bed, and 
had been crying too. 

“ ‘ Mr. Morgan wants to speak to you, sir.’ 

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Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

“ I rushed back for my medicine, and went to him. He 
stood at the door, pale and anxious. 

“ ‘ She’s alive, sir,’ said he, ‘ but that’s all. We have sent 
for Dr. Hamilton. I’m afraid he will not come in time. Do 

you know, sir, I think we should venture — with Dr. ’s 

sanction — to give her that medicine. It is but a chance ; but 
it is the only one, I’m afraid.’ He fairly cried before he had 
ended. 

“ ‘ I’ve got it here,’ said I, setting off to walk ; but he 
could not go so fast. 

“ ‘ I beg your pardon, sir,’ said he, ‘ for my abrupt refusal 
last night.’ 

“ ‘ Indeed, sir,’ said I ; ‘ I ought much rather to beg your 
pardon. I was very violent.’ 

“ ‘ Oh ! never mind ! never mind ! Will you repeat what 
Dr. said ? ’ 

“ I did so ; and then I asked, with a meekness that 
astonished myself, if I might not go in and administer it. 

“ ‘ No, sir,’ said he, ‘ I’m afraid not. I am sure your 
good heart would not wish to give pain. Besides, it might 
agitate her, if she has any consciousness before death. In 
her delirium she has often mentioned your name ; and, sir, 
I’m sure you won’t name it again, as it may, in fact, be con- 
sidered a professional secret ; but I did hear our good Vicar 
speak a little strongly about you ; in fact, sir, I did hear him 
curse you. You see the mischief it might make in the parish, 
I’m sure, if this were known.’ 

“ I gave him the medicine, and watched him in, and saw 
the door shut. I hung about the place all day. Poor and 
rich all came to inquire. The county people drove up in 
their carriages — the halt and the lame came on their crutches. 
Their anxiety did my heart good. Mr. Morgan told me that 
she slept, and I watched Dr. Hamilton into the house. The 
night came on. She slept. I watched round the house. 
I saw the light high up, burning still and steady. Then 
I saw it moved. It was the crisis, in one way or other. 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

“ Mr. Morgan came out. Good old man ! The tears were 
running down his cheeks : he could not speak ; but kept 
shaking my hands. I did not want words. I understood 
that she was better. 

“ ‘ Dr. Hamilton says, it was the only medicine that 
could have saved her. I was an old fool, sir. I beg your 
pardon. The Vicar shall know all. I beg your pardon, 
sir, if I was abrupt.’ 

“ Everything went on brilliantly from this time. 

“Mr. Bullock called to apologise for his mistake, and 
consequent upbraiding. John Brouncker came home, brave 
and well. 

“ There was still Miss Tomkinson in the ranks of the 
enemy ; and Mrs. Bose too much, I feared, in the ranks of 
the friends. 


CHAPTEE XXIX 

“ One night she had gone to bed, and I was thinking of 
going. I had been studying in the back room, where I 
went for refuge from her in the present position of affairs — 
(I read a good number of surgical books about this time, 
and also ‘ Vanity Fair ’ ) — when I heard a loud, long- 
continued knocking at the door, enough to waken the whole 
street. Before I could get to open it, I heard that well- 
known bass of Jack Marshland’s — once heard, never to be 
forgotten — pipe up the negro song — 

“ ‘ Who’s dat knocking at de door ? ’ 

“ Though it was raining hard at the time, and I stood 
waiting to let him in, he would finish his melody in the 

486 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

open air ; loud and clear along the street it sounded. I saw 
Miss Tomkinson’s night-capped head emerge from a window. 
She called out ‘ Police ! police ! * 

“ Now there were no police, only a rheumatic constable, 
in the town; but it was the custom of the ladies, when 
alarmed at night, to call an imaginary police, which had, 
they thought, an intimidating effect ; but, as every one knew 
the real state of the unwatched town, we did not much 
mind it in general. Just now, however, I wanted to regain 
my character. So I pulled Jack in, quavering as he entered. 

“ ‘ You’ve spoilt a good shake,’ said he, ‘ that’s what you 
have. I’m nearly up to Jenny Lind; and you see I’m a 
nightingale, like her.’ 

“We sat up late ; and I don’t know how it was, but I 
told him all my matrimonial misadventures. 

“ * I thought I could imitate your hand pretty well,’ said 
he. ‘ My word ! it was a flaming valentine ! No wonder 
she thought you loved her ! ’ 

“ ‘ So that was your doing, was it ? Now I’ll tell you 
what you shall do to make up for it. You shall write me a 
letter confessing your hoax — a letter that I can show.’ 

“ ‘ Give me pen and paper, my boy ! you shall dictate. 

“With a deeply penitent heart” Will that do for a 

beginning ? ’ 

“ I told him what to write ; a simple, straightforward 
confession of his practical joke. I enclosed it in a few lines 
of regret that, unknown to me, any of my friends should 
have so acted. 


CHAPTER XXX 

“ All this time I knew that Sophy was slowly recovering. 
One day I met Miss Bullock, who had seen her. 

“ * We have been talking about you,’ said she, with a 
bright smile ; for, since she knew 1 disliked her, she felt quite 

487 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

at her ease, and could smile very pleasantly. I understood 
that she had been explaining the misunderstanding about 
herself to Sophy; so that, when Jack Marshland’s note had 
been sent to Miss Tomkinson’s, I thought myself in a fair 
way to have my character established in two quarters. But 
the third was my dilemma. Mrs. Bose had really so much 
of my true regard for her good qualities, that I disliked the 
idea of a formal explanation, in which a good deal must be 
said on my side to wound her. We had become very much 
estranged ever since I had heard of this report of my engage- 
ment to her. I saw that she grieved over it. While J ack 
Marshland stayed with us, I felt at my ease in the presence 
of a third person. But he told me confidentially he durst 
not stay long, for fear some of the ladies should snap him up, 
and marry him. Indeed I myself did not think it unlikely 
that he would snap one of them up if he could. For when 
we met Miss Bullock one day, and heard her hopeful, joyous 
account of Sophy’s progress (to whom she was a daily visitor), 
he asked me who that bright-looking girl was ? And when 
I told him she was the Miss Bullock of whom I had spoken 
to him, he was pleased to observe that he thought I had been 
a great fool, and asked me if Sophy had anything like such 
splendid eyes. He made me repeat about Miss Bullock’s 
unhappy circumstances at home, and then became very 
thoughtful — a most unusual and morbid symptom in his case. 

“ Soon after he went, by Mr. Morgan’s kind offices and 
explanations, I was permitted to see Sophy. I might not 
speak much ; it was prohibited, for fear of agitating her. We 
talked of the weather and the flowers ; and we were silent. 
But her little white thin hand lay in mine ; and we under- 
stood each other without words. I had a long interview 
with the Yicar afterwards, and came away glad and satisfied. 

“ Mr. Morgan called in the afternoon, evidently anxious, 
though he made no direct inquiries (he was too polite for 
that), to hear the result of my visit at the vicarage. I told 
him to give me joy. He shook me warmly by the hand, and 
then rubbed his own together. I thought I would consult 

488 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

him about my dilemma with Mrs. Rose, who, I was afraid, 
would be deeply affected by my engagement. 

“ ‘ There is only one awkward circumstance,’ said I— 
‘ about Mrs. Rose.’ I hesitated how to word the fact of her 
haying received congratulations on her supposed engagement 
with me, and her manifest attachment ; but, before I could 
speak, he broke in — 

“ * My dear sir, you need not trouble yourself about that ; 
she will have a home. In fact, sir,’ said he, reddening a 
little, ‘ I thought it would, perhaps, put a stop to those re- 
ports connecting my name with Miss Tomkinson’s, if I 
married some one else. I hoped it might prove an efficacious 
contradiction. And I was struck with admiration for Mrs. 
Rose’s undying memory of her late husband. Not to be 
prolix, I have this morning obtained Mrs. Rose’s consent to 
— to marry her, in fact, sir ! ’ said he, jerking out the climax. 

“ Here was an event ! Then Mr. Morgan had never heard 
the report about Mrs. Rose and me. (To this day, I think 
she would have taken me, if I had proposed.) So much the 
better. 

“ Marriages were in the fashion that year. Mr. Bullock 
met me one morning, as I was going to ride with Sophy. He 
and I had quite got over our misunderstanding, thanks to 
Jemima, and were as friendly as ever. This morning he was 
chuckling aloud as he walked. 

“ ‘ Stop, Mr. Harrison ! ’ he said, as I went quickly past. 
‘ Have you heard the news ? Miss Horsman has just told 
me Miss Caroline has eloped with young Hoggins ! She is 
ten years older than he is ! How can her gentility like being 
married to a tallow-chandler ? It is a very good thing for 
her, though,’ he added, in a more serious manner; ‘old 
Hoggins is very rich ; and, though he’s angry just now, he 
will soon he reconciled.’ 

“ Any vanity I might have entertained on the score of 
the three ladies who were, at one time, said to be captivated 
by my charms, was being rapidly dispersed. Soon after Mr. 
Hoggins’ marriage, I met Miss Tomkinson face to face, for 

489 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

the first time since our memorable conversation. She stopped 
me, and said— 

“ * Don’t refuse to receive my congratulations, Mr. 
Harrison, on your most happy engagement to Miss Hutton. 
I owe you an apology, too, for my behaviour when I last 
saw you at our house. I really did think Caroline was 
attached to you then ; and it irritated me, I confess, in a 
very wrong and unjustifiable way. But I heard her telling 
Mr. Hoggins only yesterday that she had been attached to 
him for years ; ever since he was in pinafores, she dated it 
from ; and when I asked her afterwards how she could say 
so, after her distress on hearing that false report about you 
and Mrs. Rose, she cried, and said I never had understood 
her ; and that the hysterics which alarmed me so much were 
simply caused by eating pickled cucumber. I am very sorry 
for my stupidity and improper way of speaking ; but I hope 
we are friends now, Mr. Harrison, for I should wish to be 
liked by Sophy’s husband.’ 

“ Good Miss Tomkinson, to believe the substitution of 
indigestion for disappointed affection ! I shook her warmly 
by the hand ; and we have been all right ever since. I think 
I told you she is baby’s godmother. 


CHAPTER XXXI 

“ I had some difficulty in persuading Jack Marshland to be 
groomsman; but, when he heard all the arrangements, he 
came. Miss Bullock was bridesmaid. He liked us all so 
well, that he came again at Christmas, and was far better 
behaved than he had been the year before. He won golden 
opinions indeed. Miss Tomkinson said he was a reformed 
young man. We dined all together at Mr. Morgan’s (the 
Yicar wanted us to go there ; but, from what Sophy told 
me, Helen was not confident of the mincemeat, and rather 

490 


Mr. Harrison’s Confessions 

dreaded so large a party). We had a jolly day of it. Mrs. 
Morgan was as kind and motherly as ever. Miss Horsman 
certainly did set out a story that the Yicar was thinking of 
Miss Tomkinson for his second ; or else, I think, we had no 
other report circulated in consequence of our happy, merry 
Christmas-day ; and it is a wonder, considering how Jack 
Marshland went on with Jemima.” 

Here Sophy came back from putting baby to bed ; and 
Charles wakened up. 


49 1 


THE 

MANCHESTER MARRIAGE 


Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw came from Manchester to settle in 
London. He had been what is called in Lancashire a 
salesman for a large manufacturing firm, who were extending 
their business, and opening a warehouse in the city, where 
Mr. Openshaw was now to superintend their affairs. He 
rather enjoyed the change ; having a kind of curiosity about 
London, which he had never yet been able to gratify in his 
brief visits to the metropolis. At the same time, he had an 
odd, shrewd contempt for the inhabitants ; whom he always 
pictured to himself as fine, lazy people ; caring nothing but 
for fashion and aristocracy, and lounging away their days 
in Bond Street and such places ; ruining good English, and 
ready in their turn to despise him as a provincial. The 
hours that the men of business kept in the city scandalised 
him, too, accustomed as he was to the early dinners of 
Manchester folk and the consequently far longer evenings. 
Still, he was pleased to go to London ; though he would not 
for the world have confessed it, even to himself, and always 
spoke of the step to his friends as one demanded of him by 
the interests of his employers, and sweetened to him by a 
considerable increase of salary. This, indeed, was so liberal 
that he might have been justified in taking a much larger 
house than the one he did, had he not thought himself bound 
to set an example to Londoners of how little a Manchester 
man of business cared for show. Inside, however, he 
furnished it with an unusual degree of comfort; and, in 

49 2 


The Manchester Marriage 

the winter-time, he insisted on keeping up as large fires 
as the grates would allow, in every room where the tempera- 
ture was in the least chilly. Moreover, his northern sense 
of hospitality was such, that, if he were at home, he could 
hardly suffer a visitor to leave the house without forcing 
meat and drink upon him. Every servant in the house was 
well warmed, well fed, and kindly treated ; for their master 
scorned all petty saving in aught that conduced to comfort ; 
while he amused himself by following out all his accustomed 
habits and individual ways, in defiance of what any of his 
new neighbours might think. 

His wife was a pretty, gentle woman, of suitable age and 
character. He was forty-two ; she thirty-five. He was 
loud and decided ; she soft and yielding. They had two 
children ; or, rather, I should say, she had two ; for the 
elder, a girl of eleven, was Mrs. Openshaw’s child by Frank 
Wilson, her first husband. The younger was a little boy, 
Edwin, who could just prattle, and to whom his father 
delighted to speak in the broadest and most unintelligible 
Lancashire dialect, in order to keep up what he called the 
true Saxon accent. 

Mrs. Openshaw’s Christian name was Alice, and her first 
husband had been her own cousin. She was the orphan 
niece of a sea-captain in Liverpool; a quiet, grave little 
creature, of great personal attraction when she was fifteen or 
sixteen, with regular features and a blooming complexion. 
But she was very shy, and believed herself to be very stupid 
and awkward, and was frequently scolded by her aunt, her 
own uncle’s second wife. So, when her cousin, Frank 
Wilson, came home from a long absence at sea, and first 
was kind and protective to her ; secondly, attentive ; and 
thirdly, desperately in love with her — she hardly knew how 
to be grateful enough to him. It is true, she would have 
preferred his remaining in the first or second stages of 
behaviour ; for his violent love puzzled and frightened her. 
Her uncle neither helped nor hindered the love-affair; 
though it was going on under his own eyes. Frank’s 

493 


The Manchester Marriage 

step-mother had such a variable temper that there was no 
knowing whether what she liked one day she would like the 
next or not. At length she went to such extremes of cross- 
ness that Alice was only too glad to shut her eyes and rush 
blindly at the chance of escape from domestic tyranny 
offered her by a marriage with her cousin ; and, liking him 
better than any one in the world, except her uncle (who was 
at this time at sea), she went off one morning and was 
married to him; her only bridesmaid being the housemaid 
at her aunt’s. The consequence was, that Frank and his 
wife went into lodgings, and Mrs. Wilson refused to see 
them, and turned away Norah, the warm-hearted housemaid, 
whom they accordingly took into their service. When 
Captain Wilson returned from his voyage, he was very 
cordial with the young couple, and spent many an evening 
at their lodgings, smoking his pipe and sipping his grog; 
but he told them that, for quietness’ sake, he could not ask 
them to his own house ; for his wife was bitter against them. 
They were not, however, very unhappy about this. 

The seed of future unhappiness lay rather in Frank’s 
vehement, passionate disposition, which led him to resent 
his wife’s shyness and want of demonstrativeness as failures 
in conjugal duty. He was already tormenting himself, and 
her too, in a slighter degree, by apprehensions and imagina- 
tions of what might befall her during his approaching absence 
at sea. At last, he went to his father and urged him to 
insist upon Alice’s being once more received under his 
roof ; more especially as there was now a prospect of her 
confinement while her husband was away on his voyage. 
Captain Wilson was, as he himself expressed it, “ breaking 
up,” and unwilling to undergo the excitement of a scene ; 
yet he felt that what his son said was true. So he went to 
his wife. And, before Frank set sail, he had the comfort of 
seeing his wife installed in her own little garret in his father’s 
house. To have placed her in the one best spare room, was 
a step beyond Mrs. Wilson’s powers of submission or 
generosity. The worst part about it, however, was that the 

494 


The Manchester Marriage 

faithful Norah had to be dismissed. Her place as house- 
maid had been filled up ; and, even if it had not, she had for- 
feited Mrs. Wilson’s good opinion for ever. She comforted 
her young master and mistress by pleasant prophecies of the 
time when they would have a household of their own ; of 
which, whatever service she might be in meanwhile, she should 
be sure to form a part. Almost the last action of Frank, 
before his setting sail, was going with Alice to see Norah 
once more at her mother’s house ; and then he went away. 

Alice’s father-in-law grew more and more feeble as winter 
advanced. She was of great use to her step-mother in 
nursing and amusing him ; and, although there was anxiety 
enough in the household, there was, perhaps more of peace 
than there had been for years ; for Mrs. Wilson had not a 
bad heart, and was softened by the visible approach of death 
to one whom she loved, and touched by the lonely condition 
of the young creature, expecting her first confinement in her 
husband’s absence. To this relenting mood Norah owed the 
permission to come and nurse Alice when her baby was born, 
and to remain and attend on Captain Wilson. 

Before one letter had been received from Frank (who had 
sailed for the East Indies and China), his father died. Alice 
was always glad to remember that he had held the baby in 
his arms, and kissed and blessed it before his death. After 
that, and the consequent examination into the state of his 
affairs, it was found that he had left far less property than 
people had been led by his style of living to expect ; and 
what money there was was all settled upon his wife, and at 
her disposal after her death. This did not signify much to 
Alice, as Frank was now first mate of his ship, and, in another 
voyage or two, would be captain. Meanwhile, he had left 
her rather more than two hundred pounds (all his savings) 
in the bank. 

It became time for Alice to hear from her husband. One 
letter from the Cape she had already received. The next 
was to announce his arrival in India. As week after week 
passed over, and no intelligence of the ship having got there 

495 


The Manchester Marriage 

reached the office of the owners, and the captain’s wife was 
in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice herself, her 
fears grew most oppressive. At length the day came when, 
in reply to her inquiry at the Shipping Office, they told her 
that the owners had given up hope of ever hearing more of 
the Betsy-Jane } and had sent in their claim upon the under- 
writers. Now that he was gone for ever, she first felt a 
yearning, longing love for the kind cousin, the dear friend, 
the sympathising protector, whom she should never see 
again — first felt a passionate desire to show him his child, 
whom she had hitherto rather craved to have all to herself — 
her own sole possession. Her grief was, however, noise- 
less and quiet — rather to the scandal of Mrs. Wilson : who 
bewailed her step-son as if he and she had always lived 
together in perfect harmony, and who evidently thought it 
her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face she 
saw ; dwelling on his poor young widow’s desolate state, and 
the helplessness of the fatherless child, with an unction as if 
she liked the excitement of the sorrowful story. 

So passed away the first days of Alice’s widowhood. By- 
and-by things subsided into their natural and tranquil course. 
But, as if the young creature was always to be in some 
heavy trouble, her ewe-lamb began to be ailing, pining, and 
sickly. • The child’s mysterious illness turned out to be some 
affection of the spine, likely to affect health, but not to 
shorten life — at least, so the doctors said. But the long, 
dreary suffering of one whom a mother loves as Alice loved 
her only child is hard to look forward to. Only Norah 
guessed what Alice suffered ; no one but God knew. 

And so it fell out that, when Mrs. Wilson the elder came 
to her one day, in violent distress, occasioned by a very 
material diminution in the value of the property that her 
husband had left her — a diminution which made her income 
barely enough to support herself, much less Alice — the latter 
could hardly understand how anything which did not touch 
health or life could cause such grief ; and she received the 
intelligence with irritating composure. But when, that 

496 


The Manchester Marriage 

afternoon, the little sick child was brought in, and the grand- 
mother — who after all loved it well — began a fresh moan 
over her losses to its unconscious ears — saying how she had 
planned to consult this or that doctor, and to give it this or 
that comfort or luxury in after years, but that now all chance 
of this had passed away — Alice’s heart was touched, and she 
drew near to Mrs. Wilson with unwonted caresses, and, in a 
spirit not unlike to that of Ruth, entreated that, come what 
would, they might remain together. After much discussion 
in succeeding days, it was arranged that Mrs. Wilson should 
take a house in Manchester, furnishing it partly with what 
furniture she had, and providing the rest with Alice’s re- 
maining two hundred pounds. Mrs. Wilson was herself a 
Manchester woman, and naturally longed to return to her 
native town ; some connections of her own, too, at that time 
required lodgings, for which they were willing to pay pretty 
handsomely. Alice undertook the active superintendence 
and superior work of the household ; Norah, willing, faithful 
Norah, offered to cook, scour, do anything, in short, so that 
she might but remain with them. 

The plan succeeded. For some years their first lodgers 
remained with them, and all went smoothly — with the one 
sad exception of the little girl’s increasing deformity. How 
that mother loved that child, it is not for words to tell ! 

Then came a break of misfortune. Their lodgers left, 
and no one succeeded to them. After some months, it 
became necessary to remove to a smaller house ; and Alice’s 
tender conscience was torn by the idea that she ought not to 
be a burden to her mother-in-law, but to go out and seek her 
own maintenance. And leave her child ! The thought came 
like the sweeping boom of a funeral bell over her heart. 

By-and-by, Mr. Openshaw came to lodge with them. He 
had started in life as the errand-boy and sweeper-out of a 
warehouse ; had struggled up through all the grades of 
employment in it, fighting his way through the hard striving 
Manchester life with strong, pushing energy of character. 
Every spare moment of time had been sternly given up to 

497 2 K 


The Manchester Marriage 

self-teaching. He was a capital accountant, a good French 
and German scholar, a keen, far-seeing tradesman — under- 
standing markets, and the bearing of events, both near and 
distant, on trade: and yet, with such vivid attention to 
present details that I do not think he ever saw a group of 
flowers in the fields without thinking whether their colours 
would, or would not, form harmonious contrasts in the 
coming spring muslins and prints. He went to debating 
societies, and threw himself with all his heart and soul into 
politics ; esteeming, it must be owned, every man a fool or a 
knave who differed from him, and overthrowing his opponents 
rather by the loud strength of his language than the calm 
strength of his logic. There was something of the Yankee 
in all this. Indeed, his theory ran parallel to the famous 
Yankee motto — “England flogs creation, and Manchester 
flogs England.” Such a man, as may be fancied, had had 
no time for falling in love, or any such nonsense. At the 
age when most young men go through their courting and 
matrimony, he had not the means of keeping a wife, and was 
far too practical to think of having one. And now that he 
was in easy circumstances, a rising man, he considered 
women almost as incumbrances to the world, with whom a 
man had better have as little to do as possible. His first 
impression of Alice was indistinct, and he did not care 
enough about her to make it distinct. “ A pretty, yea-nay 
kind of woman,” would have been his description of her, if 
he had been pushed into a corner. He was rather afraid, in 
the beginning, that her quiet ways arose from a listlessness 
and laziness of character, which would have been exceedingly 
discordant to his active, energetic nature. But, when he 
found out the punctuality with which his wishes were 
attended to, and her work was done ; when he was called in 
the morning at the very stroke of the clock, his shaving- 
water scalding hot, his fire bright, his coffee made exactly as 
his peculiar fancy dictated (for he was a man who had his 
theory about everything, based upon what he knew of science 
and often perfectly original) — then he began to think: not 

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The Manchester Marriage 

that Alice had any particular merit, but that he had got into 
remarkably good lodgings ; his restlessness wore away, and he 
began to consider himself as almost settled for life in them. 

Mr. Openshaw had been too busy, all his days, to be 
introspective. He did not know that he had any tenderness 
in his nature ; and if he had become conscious of its abstract 
existence he would have considered it as a manifestation of 
disease in some part of him. But he was decoyed into pity 
unawares ; and pity led on to tenderness. That little helpless 
child — always carried about by one of the three busy women 
of the house, or else patiently threading coloured beads in 
the chair from which, by no effort of its own, could it ever 
move — the great, grave blue eyes, full of serious, not un- 
cheerful, expression, giving to the small delicate face a look 
beyond its years — the soft plaintive voice dropping out but 
few words, so unlike the continual prattle of a child — caught 
Mr. Openshaw’s attention in spite of himself. One day — he 
half scorned himself for doing so — he cut short his dinner- 
hour to go in search of some toy which should take the 
place of those eternal beads. I forget what he bought ; but, 
when he gave the present (which he took care to do in a 
short, abrupt manner, and when no one was by to see him), 
he was almost thrilled by the flash of delight that came over 
that child’s face, and he could not help, all through that 
afternoon, going over and over again the picture left on his 
memory by the bright effect of unexpected joy on the little 
girl’s face. When he returned home, he found his slippers 
placed by his sitting-room fire; and even more careful 
attention paid to his fancies than was habitual in those 
model lodgings. When Alice had taken the last of his tea- 
things away— she had been silent as usual till then — she 
stood for an instant with the door in her hand. Mr. Open- 
shaw looked as if he were deep in his book — though in fact 
he did not see a line, but was heartily wishing the woman 
would go, and not make any palaver of gratitude. But she 
only said — 

"l am very much obliged to you, sir. Thank you very 
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The Manchester Marriage 

much,” and was gone, even before he could send her away 
with a “ There, my good woman, that’s enough ! ” 

For some time longer he took no apparent notice of the 
child. He even hardened his heart into disregarding her 
sudden flush of colour and little timid smile of recognition 
when he saw her by chance. But, after all, this could not 
last for ever ; and, on his having a second time given way to 
tenderness, there was no relapse. The insidious enemy 
having thus entered his heart, in the guise of compassion to 
the child, soon assumed the more dangerous form of interest 
in the mother. He was aware of this change of feeling — 
despised himself for it — struggled with it; nay, internally 
yielded to it and cherished it, long before he suffered the 
slightest expression of it, by word, action, or look to escape 
him. He watched Alice’s docile, obedient ways to her step- 
mother; the love which she had inspired in the rough Norah 
(roughened by the wear and tear of sorrow and years) ; but, 
above all, he saw the wild, deep, passionate affection existing 
between her and her child. They spoke little to any one 
else, or when any one else was by ; but, when alone together, 
they talked, and murmured, and cooed, and chatted so con- 
tinually, that Mr. Openshaw first wondered what they could 
find to say to each other, and next became irritated because 
they were always so grave and silent with him. All this 
time he was perpetually devising small new pleasures for 
the child. His thoughts ran, in a pertinacious way, upon 
the desolate life before her; and often he came back from 
his day’s work, loaded with the very thing Alice had been 
longing for, but had not been able to procure. One time it 
was a little chair for drawing the little sufferer along the 
streets ; and, many an evening that following summer, Mr. 
Openshaw drew her along himself, regardless of the remarks 
of his aquaintances. One day, in autumn, he put down his 
newspaper, as Alice came in with the breakfast, and said, in 
as different a voice as he could assume — 

“ Mrs. Frank, is there any reason why we two should not 
put up our horses together ? ” 

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The Manchester Marriage 

Alice stood still in perplexed wonder. What did he 
mean? He had resumed the reading of his newspaper, as 
if he did not expect any answer; so she found silence her 
safest course, and went on quietly arranging his breakfast, 
without another word passing between them. Just as he 
was leaving the house, to go to the warehouse as usual, he 
turned back and put his head into the bright, neat, tidy 
kitchen, where all the women breakfasted in the morning — 

“ You’ll think of what I said, Mrs. Frank ” (this was her 
name with the lodgers), “ and let me have your opinion upon 
it to-night.” 

Alice was thankful that her mother and Norah were too 
busy talking together to attend much to this speech. She 
determined not to think about it all through the day ; and, 
of course, the effort not to think made her think all the more. 
At night she sent up Norah with his tea. But Mr. Open- 
shaw almost knocked Norah down, as he was going out at 
the door, by pushing past her and calling out “ Mrs. Frank ! ” 
in an impatient voice, at the top of the stairs. 

Alice went up, rather than seem to have affixed too much 
meaning to his words. 

“Well, Mrs. Frank,” he said, “what answer? Don’t 
make it too long ; for I have lots of office- work to get 
through to-night.” 

“ I hardly know what you meant, sir,” said truthful Alice. 

“ Well ! I should have thought you might have guessed. 
You’re not new at this sort of work, and I am. However, 
I’ll make it plain this time. Will you have me to be thy 
wedded husband, and serve me, and love me, and honour 
me, and all that sort of thing ? Because, if you will, I will 
do as much by you, and be a father to your child — and that’s 
more than is put in the Prayer-Book. Now, I’m a man of 
my word ; and what I say I feel ; and what I promise, I’ll 
do. Now, for an answer ! ” 

Alice was silent. He began to make the tea, as if her 
reply was a matter of perfect indifference to him ; but, as' 
soon as that was done, he became impatient. 

501 


The Manchester Marriage 

“ Well ? ” said he. 

“ How long, sir, may I have to think over it ? ” 

“ Three minutes ! ” (looking at his watch). “ You’ve had 
two already — that makes five. Be a sensible woman, say 
‘ Yes,’ and sit down to tea with me, and we’ll talk it over 
together; for after tea I shall be busy; say ‘No’” (he 
hesitated a moment to try and keep his voice in the same 
tone), “ and I shan’t say another word about it, but pay up 
a year’s rent for my rooms to-morrow, and be off. Time’s 
up ! Yes or no ? ” 

“ If you please, sir — you have been so good to little 
Ailsie” 

“ There, sit down comfortably by me on the sofa, and let 
us have our tea together. I am glad to find you are as good 
and sensible as I took you for.” 

And this was Alice Wilson’s second wooing. 

Mr. Openshaw’s will was too strong, and his circum- 
stances too good, for him not to carry all before him. He 
settled Mrs. Wilson in a comfortable house of her own, 
and made her quite independent of lodgers. The little 
that Alice said with regard to future plans was in Norah’s 
behalf. 

“ No,” said Mr. Openshaw. “ Norah shall take care of 
the old lady as long as she lives ; and after that she shall 
either come and live with us, or, if she likes it better, she 
shall have a provision for life — for your sake, missus. No 
one who has been good to you or the child shall go un- 
rewarded. But even the little one will be better for some 
fresh stuff about her. Get her a bright sensible girl as a 
nurse : one who won’t go rubbing her with calf ’s-foot jelly, 
as Norah does — wasting good stuff outside that ought to go 
in — but will follow doctors’ directions, which, as you must 
see pretty clearly by this time, Norah won’t, because they 
give the poor little wench pain. Now, I’m not above being 
nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow, and 
never change colour; but, set me in the operating-room of 
the Infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl. Yet, if need 

502 


The Manchester Marriage 

were, I would hold the little wench on my knees while she 
screeched with pain, if it were to do her poor back good. 
Nay, nay, wench ! keep your white looks for the time when 
it comes — I don’t say it ever will. But this I know, Norah 
will spare the child and cheat the doctor, if she can. Now, 
I say, give the bairn a year or two’s chance ; and then, when 
the pack of doctors have done their best — and, maybe the 
old lady has gone — we’ll have Norah back or do better 
for her.” 

The pack of doctors could do no good to little Ailsie. 
She was beyond their power. But her father (for so he 
insisted on being called, and also on Alice’s no longer 
retaining the appellation of mamma, but becoming hence- 
forward mother), by his healthy cheerfulness of manner, his 
clear decision of purpose, his odd turns and quirks of 
humour, added to his real strong love for the helpless little 
girl, infused a new element of brightness and confidence into 
her life; and, though her back remained the same, her 
general health was strengthened, and Alice — never going 
beyond a smile herself — had the pleasure of seeing her child 
taught to laugh. 

As for Alice’s own life, it was happier than it had ever 
been before. Mr. Openshaw required no demonstration, no 
expressions of affection from her. Indeed, these would 
rather have disgusted him. Alice could love deeply, but 
could not talk about it. The perpetual requirement of loving 
words, looks, and caresses, and misconstruing their absence 
into absence of love, had been the great trial of her former 
married life. Now, all went on clear and straight under 
the guidance of her husband’s strong sense, warm heart, and 
powerful will. Year by year their worldly prosperity in- 
creased. At Mrs. Wilson’s death, Norah came back to them 
as nurse to the newly-born little Edwin, into which post she 
was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part 
of the proud and happy father, who declared that if he found 
out that Norah ever tried to screen the boy by a falsehood, 
or to make him nesh either in body or mind, she should go 

5°3 


The Manchester Marriage 

that very day. Norah and Mr. Openshaw were not on the 
most thoroughly cordial terms, neither of them fully recog- 
nising or appreciating the other’s best qualities. 

This was the previous history of the Lancashire family, 
who had now removed to London. 

They had been there about a year, when Mr. Openshaw 
suddenly informed his wife that he had determined to heal 
long-standing feuds, and had asked his uncle and aunt 
Chadwick to come and pay them a visit and see London. 
Mrs. Openshaw had never seen this uncle and aunt of her 
husband’s. Years before she had married him, there had 
been a quarrel. All she knew was, that Mr. Chadwick was 
a small manufacturer in a country town in South Lanca- 
shire. She was extremely pleased that the breach was to be 
healed, and began making preparations to render their visit 
pleasant. 

They arrived at last. Going to see London was such an 
event to them that Mrs. Chadwick had made all new linen 
fresh for the occasion, from night-caps downwards ; and as 
for gowns, ribbons, and collars, she might have been going 
into the wilds of Canada where never a shop is, so large was 
her stock. A fortnight before the day of her departure for 
London, she had formally called to take leave of all her 
acquaintance, saying she should need every bit of the inter- 
mediate time for packing up. It was like a second wedding 
in her imagination ; and, to complete the resemblance which 
an entirely new wardrobe made between the two events, her 
husband brought her back from Manchester, on the last 
market-day before they set off, a gorgeous pearl and amethyst 
brooch, saying, “ Lunnon should see that Lancashire folks 
knew a handsome thing when they saw it.” 

For some time after Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick arrived at 
the Openshaws’ there was no opportunity for wearing this 
brooch ; but at length they obtained an order to see 
Buckingham Palace, and the spirit of loyalty demanded 
that Mrs. Chadwick should wear her best clothes in visiting 
the abode of her sovereign. On her return she hastily 

5°4 


The Manchester Marriage 

changed her dress ; for Mr. Openshaw had planned that they 
should go to Richmond, drink tea, and return by moonlight. 
Accordingly, about five o’clock, Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw and 
Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick set off. 

The housemaid and cook sat below, Norah hardly knew 
where. She was always engrossed in the nursery, in tending 
her two children, and in sitting by the restless, excitable 
Ailsie till she fell asleep. By- and- by the housemaid Bessy 
tapped gently at the door. Norah went to her, and they 
spoke in whispers. 

“ Nurse ! there’s some one downstairs wants you.” 

“ Wants me ! who is it ? ” 

“ A gentleman ” 

“ A gentleman ? Nonsense ! ” 

“ Well, a man, then ; and he asks for you, and he 
rang at the front-door bell, and has walked into the dining- 
room.” 

“ You should never have let him in,” exclaimed Norah, 
“ master and missus out ” 

“ I did not want him to come in ; but, when he heard you 
lived here, he walked past me, and sat down on the first 
chair, and said, ‘ Tell her to come and speak to me.’ There 
is no gas lighted in the room, and supper is all set out.” 

“ He’ll be off with the spoons ! ” exclaimed Norah, putting 
the housemaid’s fear into words, and preparing to leave the 
room ; first, however, giving a look to Ailsie, sleeping soundly 
and calmly. 

Downstairs she went, uneasy fears stirring in her bosom. 
Before she entered the dining-room she provided herself 
with a candle, and, with it in her hand, she went in, looking 
around her in the darkness for her visitor. 

He was standing up, holding by the table. Norah and 
he looked at each other ; gradual recognition coming into 
their eyes. 

“ Norah ? ” at length he asked. 

“ Who are you ? ” asked Norah, with the sharp tones of 
alarm and incredulity. “ I don’t know you : ” trying by 

5°5 


The Manchester Marriage 

futile words of disbelief to do away with the terrible fact 
before her. 

“ Am I so changed? ” he said pathetically. “ I dare say 
I am. But, Norah, tell me ! ” he breathed hard, “ where is 
my wife ? Is she — is she alive ? ” 

He came nearer to Norah, and would have taken her 
hand ; but she backed away from him ; looking at him all 
the time with staring eyes, as if he were some horrible 
object. Yet he was a handsome, bronzed, good-looking 
fellow, with beard and moustache, giving him a foreign- 
looking aspect ; but his eyes ! there was no mistaking those 
eager, beautiful eyes — the very same that Norah had watched 
not half-an-hour ago, till sleep stole softly over them. 

“ Tell me, Norah — I can bear it — I have feared it so 
often. Is she dead ? ” Norah still kept silence. “ She is 
dead ! ” He hung on Norah’ s words and looks, as if for 
confirmation or contradiction. 

“ What shall I do ? ” groaned Norah. “ O sir ! why did 
you come? how did you find me out? where have you 
been ? We thought you dead, we did indeed ! ” She poured 
out words and questions to gain time, as if time would 
help her. 

“ Norah ! answer me this question straight, by ‘ yes ’ or 
‘ no ’ — Is my wife dead ? ” 

“No, she is not ! ” said Norah slowly and heavily. 

“Oh, what a relief ! Did she receive my letters ? But 
perhaps you don’t know. Why did you leave her ? Where 
is she ? O Norah, tell me all quickly ! ” 

“ Mr. Frank ! ” said Norah at last, almost driven to bay 
by her terror lest her mistress should return at any moment, 
and find him there — unable to consider what was best to be 
done or said— rushing at something decisive, because she 
could not endure her present state : “ Mr. Frank ! we never 
heard a line from you, and the ship-owners said you had 
gone down, you and every one else. We thought you were 
dead, if ever man was, and poor Miss Alice and her little 
sick, helpless child ! O sir, you must guess it,” cried the 

5°6 


The Manchester Marriage 

poor creature at last, bursting out into a passionate fit of 
crying, “ for indeed I cannot tell it. But it was no one’s 
fault. God help us all this night ! ” 

Norah had sat down. She trembled too much to stand. 
He took her hands in his. He squeezed them hard, as if, 
by physical pressure, the truth could be wrung out. 

“ Norah ! ” This time his tone was calm, stagnant as 
despair. “ She has married again ! ” 

Norah shook her head sadly. The grasp slowly relaxed. 
The man had fainted. 

There was brandy in the room. Norah forced some 
drops into Mr. Frank’s mouth, chafed his hands, and — when 
mere animal life returned, before the mind poured in its 
flood of memories and thoughts — she lifted him up, and 
rested his head against her knees. Then she put a few 
crumbs of bread taken from the supper-table, soaked in 
brandy, into his mouth. Suddenly he sprang to his feet. 

“ Where is she ? Tell me this instant.” He looked so 
wild, so mad, so desperate, that Norah felt herself to be in 
bodily danger ; but her time of dread had gone by ; she had 
been afraid to tell him the truth, and then she had been a 
coward. Now her wits were sharpened by the sense of his 
desperate state. He must leave the house. She would pity 
him afterwards ; but now she must rather command and 
upbraid; for he must leave the house before her mistress 
came home. That one necessity stood clear before her. 

“ She is not here — that is enough for you to know. Nor 
can I say exactly where she is ” (which was true to the letter 
if not to the spirit). “ Go away, and tell me where to find 
you to-morrow, and I will tell you all. My master and 
mistress may come back at any minute, and then what 
would become of me, with a strange man in the house ? ” 
Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited 
mind. 

“ I don’t care for your master and mistress. If your 
master is a man he must feel for me — poor shipwrecked 
sailor that I am — kept for years a prisoner amongst savages, 

5°7 


The Manchester Marriage 

always, always, always thinking of my wife and my home — 
dreaming of her by night, talking to her, though she could 
not hear, by day. I loved her more than all heaven and 
earth put together. Tell me where she is, this instant, you 
wretched woman, who salved over her wickedness to her, as 
you do to me ! ” 

The clock struck ten. Desperate positions require 
desperate measures. 

“If you will leave the house now,. I will come to you 
to-morrow and tell you all. What is more, you shall see 
your child now. She lies sleeping upstairs. O sir, you 
have a child, you do not know that as yet — a little weakly 
girl — with just a heart and soul beyond her years. We 
have reared her up with such care ! We watched her, for 
we thought for many a year she might die any day, and we 
tended her, and no hard thing has come near her, and no 
rough word has ever been said to her. And now you come 
and will take her life into your hand, and will crush it. 
Strangers to her have been kind to her ; but her own father 
— Mr. Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her, and I tend 
her, and I would do anything for her that I could. Her' 
mother’s heart beats as her’s beats ; and if she suffers a 
pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is happy, it is her 
mother that smiles and is glad. If she is growing stronger, 
her mother is healthy — if she dwindles, her mother lan- 
guishes. If she dies — well, I don’t know : it is not every 
one can lie down and die when they wish it. Come upstairs, 
Mr. Frank, and see your child. Seeing her will do good to 
your poor heart. Then go away in God’s name, just this 
one night ; to-morrow, if need be, you can do anything — kill 
us all if you will, or show yourself a great, grand man, whom 
God will bless for ever and ever. Come, Mr. Frank, the 
look of a sleeping child is sure to give peace.” 

She led him upstairs ; at first almost helping his steps, 
till they came near the nursery door. She had well-nigh 
forgotten the existence of little Edwin. It struck upon her 
with affright as the shaded light fell over the other cot ; but 

508 


The Manchester Marriage 

she skilfully threw that corner of the room into darkness, 
and let the light fall on the sleeping Ailsie. The child had 
thrown down the coverings, and her deformity, as she lay 
with her back to them, was plainly visible through her slight 
night-gown. Her little face, deprived of the lustre of her 
eyes, looked wan and pinched, and had a pathetic expres- 
sion in it, even as she slept. The poor father looked and 
looked with hungry, wistful eyes, into which the big tears 
came swelling up slowly and dropped heavily down, as 
he stood trembling and shaking all over. Norah was angry 
with herself for growing impatient at the length of time that 
long, lingering gaze lasted. She thought that she waited 
for full half-an-hour before Frank stirred. And then — 
instead of going away — he sank down on his knees by the 
bedside, and buried his face in the clothes. Little Ailsie 
stirred uneasily. Norah pulled him up in terror. She could 
afford no more time, even for prayer, in her extremity of 
fear ; for surely the next moment would bring her mistress 
home. She took him forcibly by the arm, but, as he was 
going, his eye lighted on the other bed. He stopped. 
Intelligence came back into his face. His hands clenched. 

His child ? ” he asked. 

“ Her child,” replied Norah. “ God watches over him,” 
said she instinctively; for Frank’s looks excited her fears, 
and she needed to remind herself of the Protector of the 
helpless. 

“ God has not watched over me,” he said in despair, his 
thoughts apparently recoiling on his own desolate, deserted 
state. But Norah had no time for pity. To-morrow she 
would be as compassionate as her heart prompted. At 
length she guided him downstairs, and shut the outer door, 
and bolted it — as if by bolts to keep out facts. 

Then she went back into the dining-room, and effaced 
all traces of his presence, as far as she could. She went 
upstairs to the nursery and sat there, her head on her hand, 
thinking what was to come of all this misery. It seemed to 
her very long before her master and mistress returned ; yet 

5°9 


The Manchester Marriage 

it was hardly eleven o’clock. She heard the loud, hearty 
Lancashire voices on the stairs ; and, for the first time, she 
understood the contrast of the desolation of the poor man 
who had so lately gone forth in lonely despair. 

It almost put her out of patience to see Mrs. Openshaw 
come in, calmly smiling, handsomely dressed, happy, easy, 
to inquire after her children. 

“ Did Ailsie go to sleep comfortably ? ” she whispered to 
Norah. 

“ Yes.” 

Her mother bent over her, looking at her slumbers with 
the soft eyes of love. How little she dreamed who had 
looked on her last ! Then she went to Edwin, with perhaps 
less wistful anxiety in her countenance, but more of pride. 
She took off her things to go down to supper. Norah saw 
her no more that night. 

Besides having a door into the passage, the sleeping- 
nursery opened out of Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw’s room, in 
order that they might have the children more immediately 
under their own eyes. Early the next summer morning, 
Mrs. Openshaw was awakened by Ailsie’s startled call of 
“ Mother ! mother ! ” She sprang up, put on her dressing- 
gown, and went to her child. Ailsie was only half-awake, 
and in a not unusual state of terror. 

“ Who was he, mother ? Tell me ! ” 

“ Who, my darling ? No one is here. You have been 
dreaming, love. Waken up quite. See, it is broad day- 
light.” 

“Yes,” said Ailsie, looking round her; then clinging to 
her mother, “ but a man was here in the night, mother.” 

“ Nonsense, little goose. No man has ever come near 
you.” 

“ Yes, he did. He stood there. Just by Norah. A man 
with hair and a beard. And he knelt down and said his 
prayers. Norah knows he was here, mother” (half angrily, 
as Mrs. Openshaw shook her head in smiling incredulity). 

“ Well ! we will ask Norah when she comes,” said Mrs. 
5io 


The Manchester Marriage 

Openshaw soothingly. “ But we won’t talk any more about 
him now. It is not five o’clock \ it is too early for you to get 
up. Shall I fetch you a book and read to you ? ” 

“ Don’t leave me, mother,” said the child, clinging to her. 
So Mrs. Openshaw sat on the bedside talking to Ailsie, and 
telling her of what they had done at Richmond the evening 
before, until the little girl’s eyes slowly closed and she once 
more fell asleep. 

“ What was the matter ? ” asked Mr. Openshaw, as his 
wife returned to bed. 

“ Ailsie wakened up in a fright, with some story of a man 
having been in the room to say his prayers — a dream, I 
suppose.” And no more was said at the time. 

Mrs. Openshaw had almost forgotten the whole affair 
when she got up about seven o’clock. But, by-and-by, she 
heard a sharp altercation going on in the nursery — Norah 
speaking angrily to Ailsie, a most unusual thing. Both Mr. 
and Mrs. Openshaw listened in astonishment. 

“ Hold your tongue, Ailsie ! let me hear none of your 
dreams ; never let me hear you tell that story again ! ” 

Ailsie began to cry. 

Mr. Openshaw opened the door of communication before 
his wife could say a word. 

“ Norah, come here ! ” 

The nurse stood at the door, defiant. She perceived she 
had been heard, but she was desperate. 

“ Don’t let me hear you speak in that manner to Ailsie 
again,” he said sternly, and shut the door. 

Norah was infinitely relieved, for she had dreaded some 
questioning ; and a little blame for sharp speaking was what 
she could well bear, if cross-examination was let alone. 

Downstairs they went, Mr. Openshaw carrying Ailsie ; 
the sturdy Edwin coming step by step, right foot foremost, 
always holding his mother’s hand. Each child was placed 
in a chair by the breakfast -table, and then Mr. and Mrs. 
Openshaw stood together at the window, awaiting their 
visitors’ appearance, and making plans for the day. There 

5 ** 


The Manchester Marriage 

was a pause. Suddenly Mr. Openshaw turned to Ailsie, 
and said — 

“ What a little goosey somebody is with her dreams, 
wakening up poor, tired mother in the middle of the night, 
with a story of a man being in the room.” 

“Father, I’m sure I saw him,” said Ailsie, half-crying. 
“ I don’t want to make Norah angry ; but I was not asleep, 
for all she says I was. I had been asleep, and I wakened 
up quite wide awake, though I was so frightened. I kept 
my eyes nearly shut, and I saw the man quite plain. A 
great brown man with a beard. He said his prayers. And 
then looked at Edwin. And then Norah took him by the arm 
and led him away, after they had whispered a bit together.” 

“ Now, my little woman must be reasonable,” said Mr. 
Openshaw, who was always patient with Ailsie. “ There 
was no man in the house last night at all. No man comes 
into the house, as you know, if you think ; much less goes 
up into the nursery. But sometimes we dream something 
has happened, and the dream is so like reality, that you are 
not the first person, little woman, who has stood out that 
the thing has really happened.” 

“ But, indeed, it was not a dream ! ” said Ailsie, begin- 
ning to cry. 

Just then Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick came down, looking 
grave and discomposed. All during breakfast-time they 
were silent and uncomfortable. As soon as the breakfast 
things were taken away, and the children had been carried 
upstairs, Mr. Chadwick began, in an evidently preconcerted 
manner, to inquire if his nephew was certain that all his 
servants were honest; for that Mrs. Chadwick had that 
morning missed a very valuable brooch, which she had 
worn the day before. She remembered taking it off when 
she came home from Buckingham Palace. Mr. Openshaw’s 
face contracted into hard lines ; grew like what it was before 
he had known his wife and her child. He rang the bell, 
even before his uncle had done speaking. It was apswered 
by the housemaid. 


512 


The Manchester Marriage 

“ Mary, was any one here last night, while we were 
away ? ” 

“ A man, sir, came to speak to Norah.” 

“ To speak to Norah ! Who was he ? How long did he 
stay ? ” 

“ I’m sure I can’t tell, sir. He came — perhaps about 
nine. I went up to tell Norah in the nursery, and she came 
down to speak to him. She let him out, sir. She will know 
who he was and how long he stayed.” 

She waited a moment to be asked any more questions ; 
but she was not, so she went away. 

A minute afterwards, Mr. Openshaw made as though he 
were going out of the room ; but his wife laid her hand on 
his arm — 

“ Do not speak to her before the children,” she said in her 
low, quiet voice. “ I will go up and question her.” 

“No; I must speak to her. You must know,” said he, 
turning to his uncle and aunt, “my missus has an old 
servant, as faithful as ever woman was, I do believe, as far 
as love goes, but at the same time, who does not speak truth, 
as even the missus must allow. Now, my notion is, that 
this Norah of ours has been come over by some good-for- 
nothing chap (for she’s at the time o’ life when they say 
women pray for husbands — ‘ any, good Lord, any ’), and has 
let him into our house, and the chap has made off with your 
brooch, and m’appen many another thing beside. It’s only 
saying that Norah is soft-hearted, and doesn’t stick at a 
white lie — that’s all, missus.” 

It was curious to notice how his tone, his eyes, his whole 
face was changed, as he spoke to his wife ; but he was the 
resolute man through all. She knew better than to oppose 
him ; so she went upstairs, and told Norah her master wanted 
to speak to her, and that she would take care of the children 
in the meanwhile. 

Norah rose to go, without a word. Her thoughts were 
these — 

“ If they tear me to pieces, they shall never know through 

5 T 3 2 L 


The Manchester Marriage 

me. He may come — and then, just Lord, have mercy upon 
us all ! for some of us are dead folk to a certainty. But he 
shall do it ; not me.” 

You may fancy now her look of determination, as she 
faced her master alone in the dining-room; Mr. and Mrs. 
Chadwick having left the affair in their nephew’s hands, 
seeing that he took it up with such vehemence. 

“ Norah ! Who was that man that came to my house last 
night ? ” 

. “ Man, sir ! ” As if infinitely surprised ; but it was only 
to gain time. 

“ Yes ; the man that Mary let in ; that she went upstairs 
to the nursery to tell you about ; that you came down to 
speak to ; the same chap, I make no doubt, that you took 
into the nursery to have your talk out with ; the one Ailsie 
saw, and afterwards dreamed about ; thinking, poor wench ! 
she saw him say his prayers, when nothing, I’ll be bound, 
was further from his thoughts ; the one that took Mrs. 
Chadwick’s brooch, value ten pounds. Now, Norah ! don’t 
go off. I’m sure as my name’s Thomas Openshaw, that you 
knew nothing of this robbery. But I do think you’ve been 
imposed on, and that’s the truth. Some good-for-nothing 
chap has been making up to you, and you have been just 
like all other women, and have turned a soft place in your 
heart to him ; and he came last night a-lovyering, and you 
had him up in the nursery, and he made use of his oppor- 
tunities, and made off with a few things on his way down ! 
Come, now, Norah ; it’s no blame to you, only you must not 
be such a fool again ! Tell us,” he continued, “what name 
he gave you, Norah. I’ll be bound, it was not the right one ; 
but it will be a clue for the police.” 

Norah drew herself up. “ You may ask that question, 
and taunt me with my being single, and with my credulity, 
as you will, Master Openshaw. You’ll get no answer from 
me. As for the brooch, and the story of theft and burglary ; 
if any friend ever came to see me (which I defy you to prove, 
and deny), he’d be just as much above doing such a thing as 

5 T 4 


The Manchester Marriage 

you yourself, Mr. Openshaw — and more so, too ; for I’m not 
at all sure as everything you have is rightly come by, or 
would be yours long, if every man had his own.” She 
meant, of course, his wife ; but he understood her to refer to 
his property in goods and chattels. 

“ Now, my good woman,” said he, “ I’ll just tell you 
truly, I never trusted you out and out ; but my wife liked 
you, and I thought you had many a good point about you. 
If you once begin to sauce me, I’ll have the police to you, 
and get out the truth in a court of justice, if you’ll not 
tell it me quietly and civilly here. Now, the best thing you 
can do, is quietly to tell me who the fellow is. Look here ! 
a man comes to my house; asks for you; you take him 
upstairs ; a valuable brooch is missing next day ; we know 
that you, and Mary, and cook, are honest ; but you refuse to 
tell us who the man is. Indeed, you’ve told one lie already 
about him, saying no one was here last night. Now, I just 
put it to you, what do you think a policeman would say to 
this, or a magistrate ? A magistrate would soon make you 
tell the truth, my good woman.” 

“ There’s never the creature born that should get it out of 
me,” said Norah. “ Not unless I choose to tell.” 

“ I’ve a great mind to see,” said Mr. Openshaw, growing 
angry at the defiance. Then, checking himself, he thought 
before he spoke again — 

“ Norah, for your missus’ sake I don’t want to go to ex- 
tremities. Be a sensible woman, if you can. It’s no great 
disgrace, after all, to have been taken in. I ask you once 
more — as a friend — who was this man that you let into my 
house last night ? ” 

No answer. He repeated the question in an impatient 
tone. Still no answer. Norah ’s lips were set in deter- 
mination not to speak. 

“ Then there is but one thing to be done. I shall send 
for a policeman.” 

“You will not,” said Norah, starting forward. “You 
shall not, sir! No policeman shall touch me. I know 

5*5 


The Manchester Marriage 

nothing of the brooch, but I know this : ever since I was 
four-and-twenty, I have thought more of your wife than of 
myself ; ever since I saw her, a poor motherless girl, put 
upon in her uncle’s house, I have thought more of serving 
her than of serving myself ! I have cared for her and her 
child, as nobody ever cared for me. I don’t cast blame on 
you, sir, but I say it’s ill giving up one’s life to any one ; 
for, at the end, they will turn round upon you and forsake 
you. 

“ Why does not my missus come herself to suspect me ? 
Maybe, she is gone for the police ? But I don’t stay here, 
either for police, or magistrate, or master. You’re an 
unlucky lot. I believe there’s a curse on you. I’ll leave 
you this very day. Yes, I’ll leave that poor Ailsie, too. I 
will. No good will ever come to you ! ” 

Mr. Openshaw was utterly astonished at this speech; 
most of which was completely unintelligible to him, as may 
easily be supposed. Before he could make up his mind 
what to say, or what to do, Norah had left the room. I do 
not think he had ever really intended to send for the police 
to this old servant of his wife’s ; for he had never for a 
moment doubted her perfect honesty. But he had intended 
to compel her to tell him who the man was, and in this he 
was baffled. He was, consequently, much irritated. He re- 
turned to his uncle and aunt in a state of great annoyance 
and perplexity, and told them he could get nothing out of the 
woman ; that some man had been in the house the night 
before; but that she refused to tell who he was. At this 
moment his wife came in, greatly agitated, and asked what 
had happened to Norah ; for that she had put on her things 
in passionate haste, and left the house. 

“ This looks suspicious,” said Mr. Chadwick. “ It is not 
the way in which an honest person would have acted.” 

Mr. Openshaw kept silence. He was sorely perplexed. 
But Mrs. Openshaw turned round on Mr. Chadwick, with a 
sudden fierceness no one ever saw in her before. 

“ You don’t know Norah, uncle ! She is gone because 


The Manchester Marriage 

she is deeply hurt at being suspected. Oh, I wish I had 
seen her — that I had spoken to her myself. She would have 
told me anything.” Alice wrung her hands. 

“ I must confess,” continued Mr. Chadwick to his nephew, 
in a lower voice, “ I can’t make you out. You used to be a 
word and a blow, and oftenest the blow first ; and now, 
when there is every cause for suspicion, you just do nought. 
Your missus is a very good woman, I grant ; but she may 
have been put upon as well as other folk, I suppose. If you 
don’t send for the police, I shall.” 

“ Very well,” replied Mr. Openshaw surlily. “ I can’t 
clear Norah. She won’t clear herself, as I believe she might 
if she would. Only I wash my hands of it ; for I am sure 
the woman herself is honest, and she’s lived a long time 
with my wife, and I don’t like her to come to shame.” 

“ But she will then be forced to clear herself. That, at 
any rate, will be a good thing.” 

“ Very well, very well ! I am heart-sick of the whole 
business. Come, Alice, come up to the babies ; they’ll be in 
a sore way. I tell you, uncle,” he said, turning round once 
more to Mr. Chadwick, suddenly and sharply, after his eye 
had fallen on Alice’s wan, tearful, anxious face ; “ I’ll have 
no sending for the police after all. I’ll buy my aunt twice 
as handsome a brooch this very day ; but I’ll not have Norah 
suspected, and my missus plagued. There’s for you.” 

He and his wife left the room. Mr. Chadwick quietly 
waited till he was out of hearing, and then said to his wife : 
“ For all Tom’s heroics, I’m just quietly going for a detective, 
wench. Thou need’st know nought about it.” 

He went to the police-station, and made a statement of 
the case. He was gratified by the impression which the 
evidence against Norah seemed to make. The men all 
agreed in his opinion, and steps were to be immediately 
taken to find out where she was. Most probably, as they 
suggested, she had gone at once to the man, who, to all 
appearance, was her lover. When Mr. Chadwick asked how 
they would find her out, they smiled, shook their heads, and 

5i7 


The Manchester Marriage 

spoke of mysterious but infallible ways and means. He 
returned to his nephew’s house with a very comfortable 
opinion of his own sagacity. He was met by his wife with 
a penitent face — 

“ 0 master, I’ve found my brooch ! It was just sticking 
by its pin in the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore 
yesterday. I took it off in a hurry, and it must have caught 
in it; and I hung up my gown in the closet. Just now, 
when I was going to fold it up, there was the brooch ! I’m 
very vexed, but I never dreamt but what it was lost ! ” 

Her husband, muttering something very like “ Confound 
thee and thy brooch, too ! I wish I’d never given it thee,” 
snatched up his hat, and rushed back to the station, hoping 
to be in time to stop the police from searching for Norah. 
But a detective was already gone off on the errand. 

Where was Norah? Half mad with the strain of the 
fearful secret, she had hardly slept through the night for 
thinking what must be done. Upon this terrible state of 
mind had come Ailsie’s questions, showing that she had seen 
the Man, as the unconscious child called her father. Lastly 
came the suspicion of her honesty. She was little less than 
crazy as she ran upstairs and dashed on her bonnet and 
shawl ; leaving all else, even her purse, behind her. In that 
house she would not stay. That was all she knew or was 
clear about. She would not even see the children again, for 
fear it should weaken her. She dreaded above everything 
Mr. Frank’s return to claim his wife. She could not tell 
what remedy there was for a sorrow so tremendous, for 
her to stay to witness it. The desire of escaping from the 
coming event was a stronger motive for her departure than 
her soreness about the suspicions directed against her ; 
although this last had been the final goad to the course 
she took. She walked away almost at headlong speed; 
sobbing as she went, as she had not dared to do during the 
past night for fear of exciting wonder in those who might 
hear her. Then she stopped. An idea came into her mind 
that she would leave London altogether, and betake herself 

5*8 


The Manchester Marriage 

to her native town of Liverpool. She felt in her pocket for 
her purse, as she drew near the Euston Square station with 
this intention. She had left it at home. Her poor head 
aching, her eyes swollen with crying, she had to stand still, 
and think, as well as she could, where next she should bend 
her steps. Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind that 
she would go and find out poor Mr. Frank. She had been 
hardly kind to him the night before, though her heart ’ had 
bled for him ever since. She remembered his telling her, 
when she inquired for his address, almost as she had pushed 
him out of the door, of some hotel in a street not far distant 
from Euston Square. Thither she went : with what inten- 
tion she scarcely knew, but to assuage her conscience by 
telling him how much she pitied him. In her present state 
she felt herself unfit to counsel, or restrain, or assist, or do 
aught else but sympathise and weep. The people of the inn 
said such a person had been there ; had arrived only the day 
before ; had gone out soon after his arrival, leaving his 
luggage in their care; but had never come back. Norah 
asked for leave to sit down, and await the gentleman’s return. 
The landlady — pretty secure in the deposit of luggage against 
any probable injury — showed her into a room, and quietly 
locked the door on the outside. Norah was utterly worn 
out, and fell asleep — a shivering, starting, uneasy slumber, 
which lasted for hours. 

The detective, meanwhile, had come up with her some 
time before she entered the hotel, into which he followed 
her. Asking the landlady to detain her for an hour or so, 
without giving any reason beyond showing his authority 
(which made the landlady applaud herself a good deal for 
having locked her in), he went back to the police-station to 
report his proceedings. He could have taken her directly ; 
but his object was, if possible, to trace out the man who was 
supposed to have committed the robbery. Then he heard of 
the discovery of the brooch ; and consequently did not care 
to return. 

Norah slept till even the summer evening began to close 
5i9 


The Manchester Marriage 

in. Then started up. Some one was at the door. It would 
be Mr. Frank ; and she dizzily pushed back her ruffled grey 
hair, which had fallen over her eyes, and stood looking 
to see him. Instead, there came in Mr. Openshaw and a 
policeman. 

“ This is Norah Kennedy,” said Mr. Openshaw. 

“0 sir,” said Norah, “ I did not touch the brooch; 
indeed* I did not. O sir, I cannot live to be thought so badly 
of ; ” and, very sick and faint, she suddenly sank down on 
the ground. To her surprise, Mr. Openshaw raised her up 
very tenderly. Even the policeman helped to lay her on the 
sofa ; and, at Mr. Openshaw’s desire, he went for some wine 
and sandwiches ; for the poor gaunt woman lay there almost 
as if dead with weariness and exhaustion. 

“ Norah,” said Mr. Openshaw, in his kindest voice, “ the 
brooch is found. It was hanging to Mrs. Chadwick’s gown. 
I beg your pardon. Most truly I beg your pardon, for 
having troubled you about it. My wife is almost broken- 
hearted. Eat, Norah — or, stay, first drink this glass of 
wine,” said he, lifting her head, and pouring a little down 
her throat. 

As she drank, she remembered where she was, and who 
she was waiting for. She suddenly pushed Mr. Openshaw 
away, saying, “ O sir, you must go. You must not stop a 
minute. If he comes back he will kill you.” 

“ Alas, Norah ! I do hot know who ‘ he ’ is. But some 
one is gone away who will never come back : some one who 
knew you, and whom I am afraid you cared for.” 

“ I don’t understand you, sir,” said Norah, her master’s 
kind and sorrowful manner bewildering her yet more than 
his words. The policeman had left the room at Mr. Open- 
shaw’s desire, and they two were alone. 

“ You know what I mean, when I say some one is gone 
who will never come back. I mean that he is dead ! ” 

“ Who ? ” said Norah, trembling all over. 

“ A poor man has been found in the Thames this 
morning — drowned. ’ * 


520 


The Manchester Marriage 

“ Did he drown himself ? ” asked Norah solemnly. 

“ God only knows,” replied Mr. Openshaw, in the same 
tone. “ Your name and address at our house were found in 
his pocket ; that, and his purse, were the only things that 
were found upon him. I am sorry to say it, my poor Norah; 
but you are required to go and identify him.” 

“ To what ? ” asked Norah. 

“ To say who it is. It is always done, in order that some 
reason may be discovered for the suicide — if suicide it was. 
I make no doubt, he was the man who came to see you at 
our house last night. It is very sad, I know.” He made 
pauses between each little clause, in order to try and bring 
back her senses, which he feared were wandering — so wild 
and sad was her look. 

“ Master Openshaw,” said she at last, “ I’ve a dreadful 
secret to tell you — only you must never breathe it to any 
one, and you and I must hide it away for ever. I thought 
to have done it all by myself, but I see I cannot. Yon poor- 
man — yes ! the dead, drowned creature is, I fear, Mr. Frank, 
my mistress’s first husband ! ” 

Mr. Openshaw sat down, as if shot. He did not speak ; 
but after a while he signed to Norah to go on. 

“ He came to me the other night, when, God be thanked, 
you were all away at Richmond. He asked me if his wife 
was dead or alive. I was a brute, and thought more of your 
all coming home than of his sore trial; I spoke out sharp, 
and said she was married again, and very content and 
happy ; I all but turned him away ; and now he lies dead 
and cold.” 

“ God forgive me!” said Mr. Openshaw. 

“ God forgive us all ! ” said Norah. “ Yon poor man 
needs forgiveness, perhaps, less than any one among us. 
He had been among the savages — shipwrecked — I know 
not what — and he had written letters which had never 
reached my poor missus.” 

“ He saw his child ! ” 

(t He saw her— yes ! I took him up, to give his thoughts 

5 21 


The Manchester Marriage 

another start; for I believed he was going mad on my 
hands. I came to seek him here, as I more than half 
promised. My mind misgave me when I heard he never 
came in. 0 sir ! it must be him ! ” 

Mr. Openshaw rang the bell. Norah was almost too 
much stunned to wonder at what he did. He asked for 
writing materials, wrote a letter, and then said to Norah — 
“I am writing to Alice to say I shall be unavoidably 
absent for a few days; that I have found you; that you 
are well, and send her your love, and will come home 
to-morrow. You must go with me to the police court ; 
you must identify the body ; I will pay high to keep names 
and details out of the papers.” 

“ But where are you going, sir ? ” 

He did not answer her directly. Then he said — 

“ Norah, I must go with you, and look on the face of 
the man whom I have so injured — unwittingly, it is true; 
but it seems to me as if I had killed him. I will lay his 
head in the grave as if he were my only brother ; and how 
he must have hated me ! I cannot go home to my wife 
till all that I can do for him is done. Then I go with a 
dreadful secret on my mind. I shall never speak of it 
again, after these days are over. I know you will not, 
either.” He shook hands with her; and they never named 
the subject again, the one to the other. 

Norah went home to Alice the next day. Not a word 
was said on the cause of her abrupt departure a day or two 
before. Alice had been charged by her husband, in his 
letter, not to allude to the supposed theft of the brooch ; so 
she, implicitly obedient to those whom she loved both by 
nature and habit, was entirely silent on the subject, only 
treated Norah with the most tender respect, as if to make 
up for unjust suspicion. 

Nor did Alice inquire into the reason why Mr. Openshaw 
had been absent during his uncle and aunt’s visit, after he 
had once said that it was unavoidable. He came back grave 
and quiet ; and from that time forth was curiously changed. 

5 22 


The Manchester Marriage 

More thoughtful, and perhaps less active j quite as decided 
in conduct, but with new and different rules for the guidance 
of that conduct. Towards Alice he could hardly be more 
kind than he had always been ; but he now seemed to 
look upon her as some one sacred, and to be treated with 
reverence as well as tenderness. He throve in business, 
and made a large fortune, one half of which was settled 
upon her. 

Long years after these events, a few months after her 
mother died, Ailsie and her “ father ” (as she always called 
Mr. Openshaw) drove to a cemetery a little way out of town, 
and she was carried to a certain mound by her maid, who 
was then sent back to the carriage. There was a headstone 
with “ F. W.” and a date upon it. That was all. Sitting 
by the grave, Mr. Openshaw told her the story; and for 
the sad fate of that poor father whom she had never seen 
he shed the only tears she ever saw fall from his eyes. 












































































































































































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JAN 28 1907 






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LIBRARY of 



00014fl 3 £ 




